UNIT UK
by ComsatAngel
Summary: An inquisitive British Army officer, manning a security cordon after the Autons battle UNIT, notices strange things about the bodies of the supposed terrorists. He investigates further, and gets unwillingly recruited into UNIT. 3rd Doctor.
1. Chapter 1

**UNIT UK**

**Part One: Selection**

'Your attention please,' said the grizzled-looking Sergeant at the front of the Catterick Barrack's schoolroom. He didn't raise his voice but it got my attention - and everyone else's, his voice having the penetrative power that comes from long practice on a parade ground. 'If you will open the envelope on the desk in front of you.'

Cue a rustle of paper as fifteen officers, non-coms and privates opened their Top Secret UNITPCA docket.

' Thank you. Now, please notice the title of the document enclosed: "Official Secrets Act, Emergency Peacetime Provisions, Addendum." You need to sign the green flimsy, the pink flimsy and the yellow flimsy. The white flimsy, underneath the yellow, is to be retained by yourselves for reference. Press hard with the biro or it won't come through clearly.' I separated the white flimsy, because – if this selection process worked out – I'd most certainly need it for reference, and for remaining out of prison.

Inevitably, there was a joker in our pack, who stuck up his hand. Corporal Williams. He'd been terse and withdrawn in the earlier sessions, mocking where he'd even deigned to comment.

'Can I read all this stuff, Sergeant?' he asked. The sergeant nodded, gimlet-eyed, silently, in a manner yours-truly has come to recognise as I-May-Be-Saying-Yes-But-I-Mean-NO. Corporal Williams took a long five minutes to read the small print. Everybody else had finished, pushed back their chairs and were looking out of the schoolroom windows or were tapping fingers on desks.

'I'm not signing this!' declared Corporal Williams. 'I'm not signing this. It's a load of –' He opened his mouth to carry on protesting about how he didn't like the terms of the Official Secrets Act, Emergency Peacetime Provisions, Addendum, only being prevented by the arrival in the room of two Royal Military Police, who made a beeline for his desk.

'Corporal Williams has decided to serve his full sentence. Will you please escort him from the barracks?' said our sergeant, flatly and with as much emotion as if he was ordering a scotch and soda.

Corporal Williams looked highly surprised, not to mention severely peed-off, as the burly redcaps manhandled him out of the room.

'Thank you. I shall now collect all completed flimsies,' said the sergeant, deadpan, as if nothing had happened. He did just that, visiting all desks, carefully checking all the signed sheets.

'Wrong date. Sir,' he told the captain sitting behind me – Strasser, from the Devon and Dorsets. Captain Strasser hastily amended his flimsies. Come to that, I checked the date on mine. Also, I checked the quadrangle outside, where loveable Corporal Williams was being cuffed by the red caps in efficient and unkind fashion..

Once the sheets had all been collected, our formidable overseer relaxed slightly. He addressed the fourteen of us.

'Very good. Have any of you gentlemen heard of Warrant Officer Talfryn Davies? From the Royal Welch Fusiliers? No? Excellent.'

Why "excellent"? I wondered.

'W.O. Talfryn, who had lately joined UNIT, decided to earn a little pin money by selling his life story to the tabloids. The tabloids told us what he was trying to do. What he is currently doing is fourteen years in Long Lartin. Upon completion of sentence, he will be served a dishonourable discharge, lose his pension and will never get any editor to touch him with a barge-pole. Just so you know.'

Ah. Apparently violating the OSAEPPA is detrimental to one's health.

The sergeant continued.

'To make it plain, none of you will ever divulge what you experience or learn of at UNIT, until or unless the United Nations sanctions it. Keep schtum, no problum. Tell tale, go to jail.'

The second part of that last sentence had a _very_ particular resonance with me.

Perhaps now would be a good time to introduce myself. Lieutenant John Walmsley, of the Queens Lancashire Regiment. Born Wigan 1949. Why did I apply to join UNIT? That's another set of questions. Like most in the British Army, I'd heard of the recently-arrived UNIT, in the sense of "those wierdoes who deal with other wierdoes", who reported to Geneva instead of Whitehall, who didn't wear the blue beret of normal UN peacekeepers, who'd been involved in Quote terrorist action unrelated to Northern Ireland Unquote. My simultaneous involvement and downfall came in early 1971, at a place called Beacon Hill Research Establishment. Beacon Hill was the home to an astronomical research centre, focussed around a pair of radio-telescopes, full of boffins doing boffin-type research, listening to the stars chattering to each other and all that.

Except that in early 1971 a terrorist group tried to destroy the centre and it's telescopes. UNIT were involved, to the extent of killing the X-Rays (sorry – jargon for terrorists). We in the QLR, having been on duties at nearby Aldershot, were part of the outer cordon placed at one mile's distance from Beacon Hill to keep press and public from intruding, intervening or generally making a mess of things. Confirm, cordon, control.

Conversation among my platoon ran along the lines of "Why are those UNIT pansies doing all the glory-work?", "How many UNIT dead are there?" and "Bloody Hell how many dead _X-Rays_ are there!" We'd counted three military ambulances, presumably doing cas-evac from the action, none of which were hurrying, so their occupants were either dead or not badly injured. Our platoon frontage covered the A287 leading to Farnham and I stood on the road with a clipboard, backed up by Sergeant Roke and Corporal Staines. The Bedford 3-tonner carrying dead terrorists warned us to get out of the way merely by honking loudly, a greeting we returned with several Anglo-Saxon gestures and phrases. Quite by coincidence I happened to be looking into the rear of the vehicle as it sped past.

No great care taken to cover _them_ up, I thought, seeing a large tarpaulin covering a mound of bodies. The 3-tonner went over a pothole on the road, a corner of the tarpaulin flew up and I saw –

Let us just say that they weren't what you'd expect killers determined to destroy a radio-telescope to be. In fact, that glimpse reminded me of a small excursion into Farnham earlier in the day.

'Sergeant,' I called, puzzled, beckoning. Sergeant Roke politely came over; he was the one who really ran the platoon whilst I learnt the ropes, but he maintained a fiction that Lieutenant Walmsley was in charge.

'Yes, Boss? Something up?'

'Ah – well, I'm not sure, entirely. Did you get into Farnham on leave this morning?'

He shook his head. RHIP, truly (Sorry – "Rank Hath It's Privileges").

'I did, Sergeant. There were a lot of men in town there wearing big plastic heads, handing out big plastic flowers. A promotional thing. Like they do in the States.'

Sergeant Roke nodded wisely, not seeing where this was going.

'They were promoting – oh, I don't know – British Plastics Awareness Week or the like. Dressed in blazers and with silly big plastic heads on. And when that Bedford went past, I saw under the tarp in the back, and the dead "terrorists" happened to be those same plastic-promoting men in daft carnival masks.'

That set the imperturbable Sergeant Roke back on his heels for a few seconds. His advice, wise beyond his accounting, was succinct.

'That's UNIT for you, sir. I never heard anything sensible about them. Best you forget about it and pay attention to regimental matters.'

That wasn't good enough for me. What made things worse was hearing the BBC later describe whatever happened at Beacon Hill as a "training exercise gone wrong". There was considerable chat in the mess about that, but of course none of our opinions would see the light of day. Official Secrets Act and all that.

And there my curiosity got the better of me. Curiosity, and a nasty temper being my besetting sins. Next leave, I was off from Wigan like a scalded cat and travelled down to Beacon Hill. The scientific staff at the telescopes were scared silly, not daring to tell me anything of what had gone on there – though after three murders I suppose they have the prerogative to be tight-lipped. The fake story about a "training exercise" didn't convince me, and it took only half an hour to determine why.

The approach road to Beacon Hill had a pine plantation and open fields next to it, and my first revelation was the sight of scars on the tree trunks. Not that Joe Public would know, but those scars seemed exactly right for 7.62mm ball ammo as fired from NATO weapons.

Nor was that all. Oh no. I left my Escort on the road and crossed the stubble field on foot. About five yards from the roadside lay the links from a disintegrated GMPG ammunition belt. Whoever had swept the field for spent bullets and cartridge cases – because there were none present - had overlooked those. Further out, towards the trees, in front of a set of vehicle tracks, was a small shallow crater. Once again, Joe Public might not have given it a second look, but to me it had all the appearance associated with a No. 36 hand grenade. And everywhere, all over the field, were little chips of plastic.

"Training accident" my hairy white posterior. There had been a contact here, involving gunfire and explosions, not to mention deaths – those dead UNIT soldiers brought out in ambulances. And the X-rays.

Whom, I now realised, had been lying three or four deep in truck, after being shot and grenaded to bits in a firefight, but who didn't bleed at all. Not a bit. That 3- tonner had been bizarrely clean and tidy.

Clearly big fat lies were being told here. Why bother lying about a terrorist attack? The papers were full of them these days, what with things kicking-off in Ulster, not to mention mad Palestinian's blowing stuff up in the Middle East. The more I thought about it, the more curious I got. Eventually my nosiness got the better of me, and I bribed a knowledgeable redcap who organised traffic routing. He sent me word that a Bedford 3-tonner with an undisclosed cargo had been secured in the 151st Logistic Support Regiment's unused warehouse in Reading. UNIT apparently used this space to store equipment on a short-term basis, paying a nominal fee for it.

The colonel, when I asked about what really happened at Beacon Hill, scowled at me and sent me on my way with a caution to keep my oversized nose out of things that didn't concern me. Too late! My curiosity will be the death of me, and now that I'd been bitten the truth had to come out. I then had to wait for my next leave, which took me to Reading dressed in civilian clothes, and a dingy back street well out of the city centre. The 151st's warehouse had small windows twenty feet above the ground, a big folding vehicle door secured by padlock and chain, and a securely locked door for people to enter. There didn't seem to be an alarm system; there were no dogs, no sentries or warning signs. Definitely a low-key hide-in-the-open kind of place.

Okay, breaking in with a crowbar might have been a little over the top, except there didn't seem to be any other way in, and I planned to be in and out quick smart, certainly before anyone called the police.

The interior was dim, lit only by the late evening light that seeped in via the dirty window panes high up. Not wanting to alert any passers-by, the lights stayed off and the crowbarred door closed as tight as possible.

So there Lt. Walmsley stood, king of all he surveyed: a big, smelly, echoing brick warehouse. No Bedford lorry, which didn't surprise me as the battle of Beacon Hill was many weeks past by now. My torch, firmly held in the left hand, revealed the only artefacts present to be a long, low lump over in a far corner, which I covered with an only slightly-illegal Colt .45, held firmly in my right hand (not your standard Browning Hi-Power, and the ammo is hard to get). The long lump, on closer examination, turned out to be a big tarpaulin covering big, man-shaped objects. Pulling the corner back meant leaving my torch on the ground, which meant an even bigger surprise when the beam went back onto the man-shaped object. Yes, it was one of those caricatured mannequins from Farnham: a vast bulbous head, topped with a straw boater actually woven from plastic, the left cheek scarred by a great big hole, a yellow polyester jacket, also rent in places, cheap trousers and plastic hands.

Okay, I pondered. These are not people. Certainly not. Dead people left in a warehouse for a couple of months would stink to high heaven, not to mention be crawling with flies and rats.

Robots? Robots gone mad? Perhaps there really had been a training exercise gone wrong.

That head looked removable. With a bit of effort. So I grabbed hold of it and pulled, very hard indeed. Off it came, to reveal a crude simulacrum of a human head, again made of plastic, shapeless and ill-defined. No metal. Whatever object had holed the mannequin's detachable head had continued through, into this badly-put together façade of a head, gouging a hole as thick as my thumb. Checking the detached mask, I saw a matching exit hole in the rear. Bullet holes, must be. The entry and exit – paths, you couldn't call them wounds – paths of a bullet. The hidden head was composed of solid plastic, confirmed by shining the torch into the hole. No metal. When I shifted the lifeless figure it felt surprisingly light, much less solid than a human. My hastily-conceived theory about these being plastic-coated robots died the death.

Curiosity compelled me to uncover more of the incongruously cheerful figures from beneath the tarpaulin shroud. Several were badly damaged, one shattered almost apart, yet none exhibited any signs of metal articulation or wiring or electronics. They did have a hinged right hand, however, still hanging open in a few, to reveal a delicate probe-like device that nevertheless said "weapon" .

Not people. Not robots. In fact, apparently solid plastic. With a concealed weapon built into their right hand. What the hell were these bizarre things? You wouldn't create target dummies and dress them all alike in cheap polyester suits, nor give them stupid, over-sized heads. Besides, there were those dead soldiers back at Beacon Hill, who definitely didn't die from curing fumes. The penny dropped then, about all the plastic chips littered back in the fields, which hadn't been swept up because they were simply innocuous bits of detritus, to any observers. Now I knew they were plastic chips shot off these stupid mannequins in a gun battle, which constituted the what if not the why.

'Seen enough?' asked a loud, unfamiliar voice from behind.

It was creepy enough in that dark, dusty building without anyone sneaking up on me from behind, so after returning to solid ground from my involuntary leap in the air, I creditably managed to drop to one knee and level my pistol at the voice. The warehouse lights came on, and I discovered, oh horrors, that my pistol menaced an officer. A Brigadier-general. Wearing UNIT uniform, and backed up by a non-com toting a sub-machine gun.

Get your excuses ready, John my lad.

First order of business, stick gun into belt, salute smartly, come to attention. Second order of business, wonder if possible to get out past – no, there was another soldier at the door, seeing to the lock I'd forced.

'Well, Lieutenant Walmsley, you have been busy, haven't you!' exclaimed the brigadier. His tone was such that it was impossible to determine if he was amused or annoyed. 'Seen enough of the Ortons?' and he gestured at the plastic men with his swagger-stick.

The big concertina doors to the road outside were pushed open by another soldier, allowing a UNIT Bedford to drive into the warehouse. The driver kept his engine running, moving slowly up to the tarpaulin.

'Corporal Bell, load the truck. Lieutenant Walmsley, kindly show a bit of consideration and help the corporal load those remnants. They were the cheese in our mousetrap.'

Given that they were lightweight plastic, it didn't take long to chuck the Ortons into the truck bed. Bell climbed back into his cab, leaving me to face the general. That sergeant hung around too, just to ensure I stayed in place.

'Okay, off to Swafham,' ordered the general, giving the Bedford an incisive rap on the cab door with his stick.

He turned back to me, giving me the once-over. His bodyguard sergeant glanced upwards to the ceiling, at the corner above the doors, where I noticed a camera – doubtless infra-red.

No alarms on the outside, yet a camera system on the inside – it smelt of a set-up.

The general seemed to understand my sudden revelation.

'Ah, you begin to see the light. We've had our eye on you for some time, Lieutenant. Asking questions at Beacon Hill. Poking around the fields nearby. Getting information from military policemen who should know better. And now we catch you breaking into out-of-bounds military premises.'

He gave a theatrical tut, tugging the end of his moustache. The sergeant, lurking still, appeared to be stifling a smile.

'Big deal,' I muttered. 'Getting a look at a load of shop-window dummies.'The two exchanged looks.

'Door's fixed, sir,' called the soldier mending the lock. The general indicated the way forward with that bloody stick of his, letting me lead. A large civilian car had been parked outside, and all four of us got in.

'Yes, they don't look very dangerous, do they?' commented the brigadier. 'Except that when active, they can kill instantly at distances of up to fifty yards. That right hand of theirs – well, you saw them, it conceals a weapon. They aren't bulletproof, but it takes a great deal of damage to stop them. Eh, sergeant?'

'Too true, sir,' agreed the non-com gloomily.

'Okay, drive on,' ordered the brigadier. 'You realise now that we left those Ortons there for you to discover, Walmsley?'

Big fat unhappy nod from idiot subaltern. Those silly plastic shop mannequins could kill – which made my skin crawl, recalling being alone with them in the empty warehouse.

'And having caught you red-handed, we could see you court-martialled. Dishonourable discharge, loss of pension, civil prosecution. Quite a messy business.' What came next could be the textbook definition of a "pregnant pause". After all, why bother going to all the bother of setting up an elaborate trap, only to destroy what it captured?

'I take it you have a suggestion, sir?'

Oh, he certainly did. The general's suggestion was that I continue with my platoon leader training until passed, whereupon I ought to go for the UNIT Potential Candidate Application course, _ought_ emphasised very strongly.

By that time we were well past the city centre of Reading, heading out of town. They dropped me off for a long walk back to my car, in the rain, to help me ponder on my recent behaviour, no doubt.

'Nice gat, sir,' said the sergeant from the front passenger seat, nodding at the .45 in my belt. 'I'd tuck it away properly, mind you, or the police might stop you. And don't shoot yourself in the foot.'

I'd already metaphorically managed that, was my morose inner dialogue.

Back to present-day reality. The sergeant – that same one who'd been at the general's elbow – left us, to be replaced by a doctor, a tame one working for UNIT, sporting hideous sideburns and a jolly-hockey sticks personality. We each got a full medical from him, which retired another prospective applicant, a corporal from the RMP. That took the schedule up to lunchtime, a break for us and a meal in the canteen, sat at tables separate from anyone else. We three officers chatted on off-topic matters, until Strasser asked why we were applying for the PCA selection course. I gave them an edited version of my story. Nick Munroe's battalion had been given three week's notice of despatch to Ulster, for a year's tour.

'I've got family over there and I don't fancy getting into a huge argument with them over being in Ulster in uniform, or shooting at my cousins on the Falls Road. So I really want to pass this selection,' he explained, in a soft Scottish brogue. My sympathy was with him – I'd done a tour in Belfast and it wasn't Fun City, at all.

We both looked at the captain, who shrugged.

'I was having an affair with the wife of our major. When the OC found out, it was suggested that I request a transfer to another regiment, immediately, and as far away as possible. This selection seemed too good an opportunity to miss.'

I exchanged a sidelong glance at Munro, who similarly glanced at me. A real PCA prospect, our Captain. With an attitude like that, hopefully he wouldn't get past the next section.

The next section, entitled "Response to Stress" according to the blackboard, consisted of over an hour's-worth of multiple choice questions, which were gathered up silently by the vigilant sergeant. He rubbed out the writing on the blackboard and chalked up "Creative Response", dishing out new exam papers to us, papers which asked seemingly random questions – "What is the population of China in millions", "Describe an orange", "What is a cyborg", "Who was Jan Hus", finishing with comprehension exercises where the source text had every third word missing. By that time everybody had lost focus, so the tea break came just in time. Whilst we were in the canteen, an unfamiliar officer toured us at our isolated tables. Those he stopped and whispered to didn't go back to the selection room, whittling our thirteen down to eight.

'Any questions?' asked the sergeant, seemingly relaxed now that we were a manageable number.

'Yes,' I said. 'What happens to those who've failed selection so far?'

'They'll probably get a desk job, sir. Nice pen-pushing work.'

Of course that waste of space Strasser piped up.

'Oh dear, that's what _I _ wanted.'

The sergeant's face remained stonily blank.

'UNIT sends anyone fit to fight into action, sir. We don't have enough vetted people to do anything else.'

I didn't find that especially comforting. Short-handed and in the front line all the time. Great!

Our final test didn't seem like one, yet from what I learnt afterwards, this was the most critical part of the whole process. We got a stack of blank, lined paper, and the instruction, written upon the trusty blackboard, "What do you know about UNIT and why do you want to join". My nasty side smiled at that – Strasser wouldn't manage to pass this one.

Yet, ninety minute later, he had. Two other members left us, the five lucky winners being Strasser, Munroe, whose freckled face blinked hard in surprise, myself, a Corporal Horrigan and Private Ely.

Not being allowed to leave the room, we then got an apperance by that same general from the warehouse in Reading. With his damn swagger stick, of course. He strode to the front of the room and took us in at a glance.

'Congratulations!' he said, and meant it. 'Four out of fifteen isn't bad. On the odd occasion we only get one, or two.'

Nick and I looked at each other, and he mouthed what I was thinking: _four?_

'Of course you must be wondering if I can count, gentlemen, and I assure you I can. One of you was really one of _us_, a UNIT agent out to observe you, ensure you were genuine, test your mettle if you like.'

Strasser got to his feet and walked over to stand beside the general.

'Captain March, UNIT, late of Forty Commando,' snapped Strasser – sorry, March – coming to a crisp salute in front of the general. He exhibited a steely resolve entirely absent only minutes before. An actor, and a good one at that.

'Now that you've all passed PCA selection, you are required to report to Aylesbury Headquarters by oh-nine-hundred tomorrow morning, travel chits available from the Adjutant's Office. You need only bring personal effects with you, as new kit will be issued against anything you hold from HM Armed Forces. For your information, I am usually known as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The sergeant here is Sergeant Benton. You already know Surgeon-Lieutenant Sullivan. Gentlemen, be prepared from now on for anything on Earth. Or off it.'

The four of us left in the room stood in silence for a few seconds. Nick passed the first comment.

'So that's him. I've heard of Lethbridge-Stewart. Supposedly the whole idea of UNIT was his brainchild.'

What impressed me was his insistence on "Brigadier". Normally, any brigadier you meet impresses upon you the fact that he is in fact a general and don't you forget it.

'I need to get back to quarters, tell the missus about being transferred,' said Horrigan. 'Or at least tell her what I can,' he added. Private Ely went with him.

'Fancy a shot of Scotland's finest?' asked Nick. I decided I did fancy it, barely able to register that there wouldn't be a prosecution about breaking into the Reading warehouse.

'I do, but not here. Lets find a bar in town. I don't feel comfortable with the thought of UNIT spies peering over my shoulder and listening at my elbow.'

We took my car and drove out into the country, despite my words, looking for and finding an isolated pub, the "Barley Mow". Entire clientele when we entered consisted of half a dozen farming folk, which suited us fine.

'What d'you think he meant " – anything on Earth, or off it"?' asked Nick, sniffing his glass of whisky.

'From what little I know about UNIT, they get called in to deal with anything mysterious. UFO's, little green men, maybe even the Loch Ness monster. Whatever they do gets sat upon by the D-Notice Committee, so the press never hear about it.'

We sipped in mutual silence.

'They were involved in London, when the Big Freeze took place. My cousin let that slip once, after a New Year's party and a long day's drinking.'

The "Big Freeze" was an unofficial nickname for that period in the autumn of 1968, where the UK population, or even the entire world, if you believed the more nutty sections of the press, mysteriously lost many hours in a fugue state. I'd been horribly hungover in bed, and slept through it all. There were cults that had grown up about it, newsletters, books, speculative television programmes, all pretty boring to my mind. Despite that proviso, my interest was piqued by Nick's statement.

'Really? Did he have an explanation for the Big Freeze, then? Nowadays it's been swept under the carpet and if you mention it people consign you to the Wacky Wardrobe.'

He shook his head slowly, obviously thinking about his reply.

'No, we couldn't draw him on that. Then he went on about babysitting a nuclear warhead into Russian airspace. _That_ got our interest!'

It got mine, too.

'Er – and then he passed out. Mind you, we'd been drinking since seven o'clock in the morning, and he's getting on a bit.'

Still, anything "off Earth" did have a particular ring to it.


	2. UNIT UK: Induction

**Part Two: Induction**

UNIT HQ Aylesbury sits outside the town on the A413, well back from the road, surrounded by high wire fences topped with barbed wire. The only indication of it's function or occupants is a sign by the entrance gate, six inches sqare, that says "UNIT HQ AYLESBURY".

I showed the sentry on duty my travel pass, and his companion came round to check Nick Munroee's as well. We'd agreed to drive in my car, and I'd picked him up from the hotel in Richmond at the crack of dawn that morning, facing a very long drive south from Catterick in North Yorkshire.

Here we finally were, at what seemed at first glance to be an Edwardian building adopted by the MoD, judging by the number of Landrovers and Bedford trucks sitting outside.

'What the hell is that!' exclaimed Nick as we got out after parking, hefting our suitcases. I followed his glance, to see what looked like a combination of delta jet and hovercraft, all silver, sitting next to –

'What's an antique doing there, you might add. Hell, I know budgets are tight, but they must be desperate to keep that lemon on the roads!' I snidely added.

Corporal Horrigan beat us to it, having travelled overnight, and sat waiting in the lobby. Private Ely took another thirty minutes to arrive, on a motorbike.

'Sorry I'm late, sir,' he apologised to me. 'Car broke down, had to borrow my brother's bike.'

For all that, nobody bothered us until nearly ten, when a captain arrived to greet us.

'Hello there,' he said, squinting at me slightly. 'Captain Mike Yates, late of the King's Dragoon Guards. Welcome to UNIT! We'll need to get you kitted out with new uniforms. If you'll follow me –'

My memory might be playing tricks on me but I felt I'd met this captain before.

'Lieutenant – Walmsley, isn't it? Do you play rugby?' he asked, leading us into a warren of corridors and stairs.

'Er – yes, sir. Full back for the regimental team.'

Nick wrinkled his brows at me, and the two others cast glances too. What was Captain Yates inferring?

'Ah – here we are. Okay, once you're fully dressed, meet me in C3. We'll begin the introductions then.'

"Quartermaster" stated the legend on the door Yates had led us to. He pushed the door open and we filed in.

Twenty minutes later we filed out, clad in uniforms that closely resembled those worn in the British Army, yet not quite. Our berets – beige, not black - all sported the UNIT logo instead of a regimental badge, we had the UNIT logo on our blouses, generally we felt more of a UNIT team than refugees from various regiments.

Ely led the way to C3. He had a nose for directions, did Ely. The room turned out to have a blackboard, a whiteboard, a film screen and projector, a big display stand with a flipchart attached, desks and a big tape deck off in the corner. Yates was waiting for us, clutching a stack of loose-leaf binders and a clipboard.

'Ah, good. Take a desk each, please. Okay, I'm going to give you one of these folders, for which you have to sign – here, in the box – and which are not to be removed from the building. Let me repeat that, NOT to be removed from the building.'

The big deal obviously had to be that the dossiers were full of top secret information, fine by me, top secret meant my nosiness got satisfied.

Yates gave us the go-ahead to read the files, which had been sealed with a circular wafer over the open leaves, meaning it needed to be torn open for us to read it.

"ABOVE TOP SECRET UNIT EYES ONLY" blared the first page. The second page had more information. "NOT TO BE PASSED ON TO ANY NON-UNIT PERSONNEL ON PAIN OF IMMEDIATE SANCTION". Yes, fine, we got the message. Then came a chapter listing , with mysterious names I didn't recognise – "Auton", "Cyberman", "Dalek", "Eocene/Silurian", plus lots more.

The first page gave me a surprise after reading it thoroughly.

"AUTON

Description:

A physical artefact activated by the presence of the Nestene Consciousness (See NESTENE). Invariably composed of plastic, individual Autons exhibit intelligent and rational behaviour. Typically they manifest as humanoid in appearance but have also adopted unusual bodyforms for special purposes (See Photo 5 & 7).

Offensive Capability:

Being mutually telepathic, all Autons instantly know what any single Auton knows. They can sustain significant damage before being impaired in function. They do not require light, heat, food, air or water to survive. As a hive-mind they do not exhibit any manifestations of emotion. Primary weapon is a probe, usually built into the right hand, which delivers a focussed pulse of energy; this is capable of instantly killing an adult male at ranges of up to seventy yards, and which is also effective against any material not specifically proofed against energy attack. Secondary weapon is left hand, used as an edged weapon for karate-style attack.

Vulnerabilities:

Being composed of plastic means Autons are vulnerable to incendiary munitions. A sufficient amount of small arms fire will destroy them, as will high explosive. High-frequency radio waves in the megahertz range projected unidirectionally will dissipate any Nestene presence in an Auton. Disruption of communication between Nestenes will deactivate all Autons simultaneously.

Other Notes:

Autons tend to run to two types; the "soldier" and the "actor". The former are only crudely similar to a human being and constitute their main offensive force, working either in disguise or openly. The latter mimic specific humans and replace them, being distinguishable only by persons previously in close contact to those being replaced, so accurate is the reproduction.

Codename: AIRFIX

Appendix:

OPERATION GIBRALTAR

OPERATION LONDON"

There were photographs after the body of text: No. 1 showed a plastic football, dimpled and internally-lit, entitled "SWARM LEADER"; No. 2 was a man in a boiler suit, or rather something resembling a man in a boiler-suit, dubbed "VARIANT ONE"; No. 3 was one of my old friends in yellow jacket and huge head, entitled "VARIANT TWO"; No. 4 was a pop-eyed individual called "VARIANT CHANNING"; No. 5 was an inflatable chair; No. 6 a plastic daffodil; No. 7 a grotesque miniature monster; No. 8 a huge glass and metal box containing the remains of a nasty-looking creature composed of equal parts crab, spider and octopus, "MATERIALISED NESTENE". Once I'd read this startling entry I went back and read it again, just to make sure I'd gotten it correct.

Silence reigned in the room once we'd looked at the information within the dossier. Only I didn't seem utterly stunned by the written record, for sound reasons.. The description of the Brigadier's "Ortons" tallied precisely with the Autons in this book.

Captain Yates remained unbothered by our immense scepticism. In fact he seemed to expect it as per normal.

'I was involved at the tail-end of Operation Gibraltar,' he informed us. 'Cleaning up after the mess the Autons made over the whole of the Home Counties the first time. Except I wasn't officially in UNIT at that point, which happened to be the third invasion attempt by a hostile alien power.'

Not being a mind-reader, I still knew that the others were thinking the same as me: the _third_ attempt?

'You are all here because of your involvement in the most recent attempt by the Autons, Operation London. We anticipate further attempts by them in the near future, given that they've tried twice within a year already.'

Corporal Horrigan stuck up a hand.

'What about the first two invasions, sir?'

Yates wasn't bothered at all.

'You'll see them in the Appendices – Operation Resolve and Operation Merlin. The Great Intelligence, working via the Yeti, and the Cybermen, respectively.'

Blank looks all round.

'The London Underground? The Sixties The Big Freeze?' added Yates. Horrigan and Nick both got the raised-eyebrow and slack-jawed expression that usually denotes a major lightbulb moment.

For a minute I took a mental step back and considered what I'd gotten into. A top secret military organisation that dealt with alien attacks upon Planet Earth, which had done so for many years past, in total secrecy for as long as the folks in charge might wish. Another person might dismiss things as fantasy, fiction, make-believe, and so might I had there not been the fact of those plastic mannequins lying in a Reading warehouse. Plus the dead UNIT soldiers, and the trap set for nosey parkers.

Yates glanced over us assuredly.

'Don't worry, you can read the dossier at your leisure. Things will seem less fantastic once you've been given the tour at Swafham. That's where we keep all the bits and pieces from our various operations, what you might call a "black museum",' he finished, with a grin.

'Okay, back to a potted-history of UNIT. For obvious reasons we don't publish or circulate official works that the press or public might get hold of. There is a complete file of all UNIT operations world-wide, held in Geneva, which nobody below the level of President or Prime Minister gets to see.

'Here in Great Britain, we can trace the roots back to the beginning of the Cold War.' Captain Yates moved over to the flip-chart and turned the first, blank, page, revealing a little family tree. He pointed to the diagram and talked us through it.

'From 1945 until 1953, defence of the mainland was devolved to the RAF's Strike Command and Coastal Command and the Royal Navy's Inshore Patrol respectively. After the creation of the Warsaw Pact in 1953, things got more formalised. Since any invasion or incursion would come by air or sea, the flyboys created the Intruder Counter-Measures Group, whilst the Senior Service brought the Close Shore Interception Team into being – about a third of the way up our tree here. After Operation Resolve – the Yeti, the London Underground, the Great Intelligence? – after that, Colonel Lethbridge Stewart took his idea to the United Nations, who approved a charter, structure and funding for UNIT. Here in the UK the ICMG and CSIT were merged into the first formal UNIT organisation. Which is here, just below the crown of our family tree.'

This matter-of-fact delivery, together with dates and especially the acronyms the armed forces love so much, acted upon us to make the whole incredible scenario more believable. Yates continued, blandly assured, convinced that it was all perfectly correct, even approaching normal.

'In the early days several OC's saw a posting to UNIT as a convenient way to get rid of dead wood, and the overall quality of recruits dropped noticeably when we got dozens of completely useless duffers. This was soon, er, remedied, as, er, they tended to get killed rather quickly. Nowadays we have the Prospective Candidate Application system to screen people, which means a far lower rate of breakdowns or Returned To Units.'

We were proof of just that. Fourteen applicants, four successful.

Yates checked his watch.

'Okay, Major Hunter will be here in less than five minutes. He's made a study of UNIT history, personnel and operations. If any European government has a question that relates to UNIT, Major Hunter is the chap who answers it, usually in person to avoid any potential leaks over the airwaves or in print. Now that each of you has a basic understanding of where you fit into the scheme of things, there must be questions you want to ask. In which case – ah, sir!'

Yates saluted smartly as Major Hunter marched briskly into the room. We lesser mortals sprang to attention. He was thin, wiry, sporting a grey moustache and with restless eyes that took in the whole room and it's occupants. Nick Munroe gave a visible start of surprise when he set eyes on the major.

The major pivoted on his heel and returned the salutes, motioning us back to our seats.

'Okay, at ease. Do any of you have questions?'

Oh did we ever!

'Why doesn't anyone know about this?' snapped Nick, first off the mark.

'Fear,' replied the major, equally rapidly. 'If people knew how vulnerable we are it would have a major and destablising effect on society. Plainly put, we have been lucky several times in defeating invasion or incursion, and the decisions at the Security Council level were made to prevent this fact from becoming common knowledge. Planet Earth is in a particularly vulnerable state, having advertised our presence to the galaxy at large, without having the ability to defend itself against anyone who might take an unfriendly interest in us.'

'What's the difference between invasion and incursion?' asked Corporal Horrigan.

Hunter smiled a knowing smile.

'Captain – if you will turn the sheet.' Yates stepped forward and ripped off the top sheet from the flip chart, revealing a page of writing in black felt pen.

'"Invasion",' began the major, pointing to the top line. 'With examples. Defined as a large-scale attempt to occupy significant areas of Earth, with or without affecting the population in place. Operation Resolve, Operation Merlin, Operation Gibraltar, Operation London, Operation Eager. You'll find the full list of Operations in the appendix of your dossier.

'Next, "Incursion". A raid or attack of strictly limited intent and duration. Operation Grail, Operation Cambridge, Operation Snowflake, also the Intruder Counter-Measures Group's "do" in 1963. No operation title for that, it predates UNIT.

'Lastly, "Hostile Forces Already in Place". A bit tricky to describe, this one. Given the length of time the Earth has been around, we humans are not the first or only race to have evolved here, _in situ_. Apparently there are at least two other races, evolved reptiles, which exist in suspended animation at various locations around the globe. That's Operation Crusader, with the Silurians or Eocenes, depending on which boffin you believe; Operation Export, and I'm not going to sound like an idiot describing what the devil happened there; and Operation White Birch, which dealt with the second race of reptiles, amphibious ones this time. We don't have full details on that job, given that it was nearly all run by the Royal Navy, and the Ministry of Defence gives up it's secrets very, _very_ reluctantly.'

Private Ely asked a question on my mind as well.

'Sir, are the Russians in on this too?'

Hunter smiled a tight little smile. His eyes flicked to Nick for a second and with a rush of surprise I realised that Major Hunter was the cousin Nick had referred to earlier.

'Oh yes, absolutely. Well - they are now. To begin with they were extremely suspicious about Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart's proposal, and blocked it in the Security Council, for eighteen months. Then they suddenly seemed to have a change of heart overnight, and openly backed UNIT. We can only suppose a power-shift in the Kremlin caused that. Anyway, once approved, they refused to let any NATO troops onto Soviet territory, or Warsaw Pact territory for that matter. Currently all Soviet and WarPac UNIT personnel are drawn from the armed forces of those countries, in the Soviet case mostly from the GRU. Despite refusing any UNIT personnel from other countries access into their territory, we actually have a very good information-exchange system in place with the Russians. If you get sufficiently high clearance in your career with us, you may eventually be privy to that data.'

Ah, the salt in the wound. Okay, I'd been given access to information beyond the ken of Joe Public and 99.9999 of the world's population, yet the major had to leave a twist in the tail – there was a lot more going on in UNIT operations world-wide and which I didn't have access to.

Time for my question.

'Sir, what about the Americans, and the French and Chinese? They're all members of the Security Council. Do they support UNIT?'

The major looked at me with his keen grey eyes, narrowing them slightly.

'Walmsley, isn't it? You took a degree in Political Science, if I remember correctly, eh? Good question, good question. The American military has been focussed on Indochina since 1965, Lieutant, and they've had precious little time, money, energy or inclination to support UNIT, especially since their scientific establishment has been devoted to the Apollo programme. Uncle Sam, for once, is content to let Britannia lead the way this time. The French have been only cautiously pro-UNIT, except for their proposal of a multi-national emergency team, which they're quite keen on. It may yet come about, if – and it's a big if – the other European nations can agree. The Chinese supported UNIT's creation out of sheer spite because the Russians didn't! Once the Russians changed their mind, the Chinese remained supportive. Too much of an about-face to oppose it.'

One question generated another, so I asked again.

'So, sir, does every country around the world have a UNIT component to it's armed forces?'

He seemed surprised.

'No, not at all! Don't forget that any UNIT force is mostly composed of full-time regulars on temporary assignment to the local UNIT command. That means the staff are still being paid by the host country, but not in it's service, which is too much of a financial burden for most Third World countries to sustain. Typically, the non-aligned nations, mostly India, Yugoslavia and Brazil, have an exchange programme with other non-aligned countries. An incident in Zambia would probably see a UNIT team flown in from Nigeria, for instance. No, I'm sorry to say that budgets being what they are, UNIT has to make a little go a long way, so very few of our staff are permanent members paid by Headquarters in Geneva.'

Motivated by the spirit of mischeif, I asked another question.

'What about Eire, sir?'

You might have imagined a small powder charge had been ignited under the major's buttocks, so sharp and sudden was his change in posture.

'What! What do you know about that! Lieutenant, explain yourself!'

It took several seconds for the penny to drop.

'Sir? Explain what? I meant, as a non-aligned nation, would Eire have a UNIT force of it's own or if not, would they have to send across Europe for one when the most experienced UNIT formation of all is just across the Irish Sea?'

He visibly relaxed, rolling his eyes a little.

'Bloody hell, Walmsley, you just took ten years off my life! I thought – well, never mind. The Irish Republic has a very small UNIT team, and in case of any emergency beyond their ability to cope, we have an arrangement to provide aid from the UK.'

He saw me about to ask another question and pre-empted me.

'Don't ask anything about UNIT in Eire, because I cannot and will not answer. Okay, anybody else?'

Everybody being slighly gobsmacked meant he was able to leave, giving Nick a knowing wink on the way out, and me a cold hard stare. Whoops, not a good start, John me lad.

The irrepressible Captain Yates sprang back into action again. He issued us with a red card, which one and all signed for.

'Okay, you've now received your Red Card. If you will read the instructions inside, please.'

Nick squinted at me, and I caught Corporal Horrigan looking strangely at the captain. We were all used to the Yellow Card, which detailed what a soldier had to do when carrying out Duties in Aid of the Civil Power. Essentially, you can't simply draw a bead on Joe Public and put a 7.62 through his head; you have to warn him first, along the lines of "Halt! Hands up!". This is drummed into you in all the training for Ulster. But a "Red Card"? Never heard of it.

Captain Yates remained perfectly calm. He must have heard all this before. Okay, okay, read on John, read on.

"UNIT Personnel acting under the auspices of the Emergency Powers Act, Peacetime Provisions (UK MAINLAND), Section One, Para Two, are obliged under their terms of service to open fire on Identified Hostiles (see attachment) immediately and not cease until so ordered, on pain of immediate and summary punishment. Once Identified Hostiles are encountered, there are to be NO verbal warnings, NO warning shots and NO prisoners taken under ANY circumstances."

It took a minute for this message to sink in.

'Sir, this is a licence to kill!' commented Corporal Horrigan.

'Yes, I suppose it is,' agreed Yates, diffidently. 'And for good reason.' He didn't carry on explaining, so Nick prompted him.

'Sir, this Red Card gives us carte blanche to simply kill anyone on sight.'

'Oh, no, Lieutenant, it doesn't. "Identified Hostiles" is what it says. There's a long typed attachment at the back you need to read to understand what a Hostile is. I can say from bitter personal experience that with some Hostiles you fire first and worry later because if you give them the chance there won't _be_ a later.'

Slowly it dawned on me that Yates, in his typically understated British officer's stiff-upper-lip way, was saying that people's lives, lots and lots of them, maybe all of them, depended upon UNIT doing the right thing and killing the bad guys.

'Right, who's up for tiffin?' finished the Captain, brightly.

'What!' I replied. 'You tell us that Earth is in imminent peril from alien invasion, that we have to cope with little green men who kill, that the world depends on us, that our lives are in peril, and you ask – "who wants tea"!'

'Well, what do you want, then?' asked the captain.

'Milk and two sugars,' said a grinning Nick Munroe.

We got mugs of sergeant-major's tea, and the captain moved our induction on, pinning up a map of the UK, with red stickers at various UNIT locations.

'You won't be assigned permanently for a couple of weeks, until you've thoroughly bedded-in. After that you'll go to your parent company. Okay, tomorrow we're going to Swafham Prior, as I mentioned to you, the place we keep all our ghastly relics of various Operations. Any doubts you have about the induction will get quashed there, I guarantee. I recommend you read the dossier thoroughly today so you're clued-up for the visit tomorrow. Then there's Hayling's House, on the Dorset coast, where a lot of our in-house research goes on. Full of boffins in white coats. Up here is Maiden's Point, near Staithe. If it's possible for a place to be simultaneously boring and creepy, that's Maiden's Point. You have to be helicoptered in since there aren't roads to it any longer. Everyone has to do a tour there, thanks to our lack of manpower. Then we have Castlemuir in the Hebrides - horrible place to get sent, miles from anywhere and overrun with sheep – which carries out monitoring, something to do with SETI. Where else – oh, Auderly House, or what's left of it. That's a cushy number compared to some of the others.'

More paperwork arrived: a small pamphlet, once more with ABOVE TOP SECRET, give away on paid of death, mutilation, revocation of pension, etcetera. The first page showed a picture of what appeared to be a Victorian vaudeville villain, all goatee and slick black hair, subtitled "The Master".

'Who's the character with the face-fungus?'asked Nick.

'A very nasty individual known as "The Master",' began Yates. 'Guilty of every crime you can imagine. Nor is he human, despite appearances.'

My eyebrows rose at that phrase. Not human? I looked closely at the photo again. He definitely looked human.

'What is he then, sir, if he isn't human?' asked Corporal Horrigan, obviously enough.

'The details are all in your issue. Make sure you read and remember them, he can crop up anywhere, to make mischief or exploit it. What is he? An intelligent alien, humanoid, with advanced scientific knowledge, who wants to gain power on Earth. He's likely to ally himself with other parties who also want to gain power, like the Axons.'

Ah, yes, the Axons, next entry in my dossier after "Autons".

'A bad guy, then,' stated Nick. Yates nodded.

'Definitely. Remember, Red Card rules if you spot him. Sergeant Benton has a sweepstake – entirely unofficially – for whoever pots him.'

There was only time to glance at the details within the pamphlet before another issue of documents, radio callsigns. We were trusted enough to take this away with us for reference, and that finished the day. The captain showed us to our quarters and the next half hour was spent by all four of us sprogs trailing in equipment, stacking and unpacking it. My spartan little cubbyhole, laughingly dubbed an Officer's Room, Single, began to look more human once it was filled with my books, photographs. Nick called in and suggested a visit to the mess.

'Where'd you get that gangster gun?' he asked, spotting me tucking the Colt .45 away in my lockable desk.

'I bought it, off an officer in the regiment. I didn't ask him how he got it, and there's no paperwork with it, either. So it's a bit buckshee.'

He eyed me curiously.

'Yes, and why buy one? This is the army you know, we get issued Bertie Browning for free,' he added sarcastically whilst we walked to the mess.

'Impulse purchase. Besides, it puts your target down better than those nine-mill popguns we get issued.'

A long and boring debate about bullet characteristics was avoided once we got to the mess; shop talk is frowned upon there. Captain Yates introduced us to the other officers, we made polite small talk and ate. Perfectly normal, just like dinner in the mess at any regiment you might encounter across England, except other regiments didn't see off Martians or Axons or Slimurians or whatever they were – the names got a bit blurred together after reading so many of them.

'How's your first day on the strength been?' asked a Captain Beresford, in just about the most proper Received English accent you could imagine.

'Confusing, sir,' admitted Nick. 'A lot to take in.'

'Not just that, sir,' I added. 'The world looks a great deal stranger than it did yesterday.'

He laughed, not unkindly.

'We've all been there, Lieutenant! Don't worry, you'll settle down surprisingly quickly.'

My rueful look amused everyone at the table.

'If it's alright, I intend to get an early night. John and I were up at five for the trip down from Catterick,' said Nick.

'You're not on the duty roster yet,' said Captain Yates. 'Make the most of it while you can!'

'In that case, I'm off to bed too, sir. Goodnight,' and with that the newest officer recruits to UNIT were off to bed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three: The Black Museum**

Next morning meant an early start for us four newcomers, assembling at the transport pool by oh seven hundred for our trip to Swaffham Prior. We went by Landrover, Captain Yates driving, me in the front seat and all others on the hard seats in the rear. With such an early start we'd missed breakfast, so outside Bedford Yates found a roadside café and bought tea and bacon butties.

'It's a long journey,' complained Corporal Horrigan. 'Why don't they store things at Aylesbury?'

'Security,' said the captain around a mouthful of sandwich. 'The stuff up there needs to be kept away from the public. Our museum is in the middle of an old World War Two aerodrome, miles and miles from anywhere, securely fenced off, patrolled and garrisoned by UNIT. It's also close to Cambridge, so the University sends up boffins to nosey around the relics. Quite what they hope to get out of them I don't know.'

Our second leg of the journey took ages again, so we finally reached the barrier across the road to "UNIT Storage Swaffham Prior" at eleven o'clock. The sentries checked each of us, saluted Yates and motioned us into the base.

'I haven't said much about what you'll see here because, quite frankly, you wouldn't believe me,' he commented. Whilst he drove, I looked at the scenery outside, which was bleak and depressing: mile upon mile of deserted, cracked, weedy runways, a broken-windowed brick control tower covered in dirt, and aircraft hangars situated well away from the gate. Once the Landrover got closer we saw half a dozen civilian cars parked outside one of the huge green buildings.

'Ah, that means Cambridge have sent up their scientists today. These people have all been vetted by UNIT, so you can actually talk freely to them.'

'Unlike normal civilians,' quipped Nick from the rear.

We drew up alongside a Cortina and debussed. Captain Yates did a double-take at one of the cars, recognising it and not seeming happy about the vehicle.

'Oh dear,' he muttered in a low voice, which only I was close enough to hear.

The enormous hangar doors stood slightly ajar, wide enough for our party to enter. Lighting strung inside from cables and girders made the interior less dark than might be imagined, with spotlights picking out different sections of the floor.

A muted, rapid thud-thud-thud came from outside, and we all cocked heads with mutual professional interest.

'Ah! Captain Yates, with another band of tourists,' called an officer from the hangar depths. A figure strode towards us, gradually resolving into a Major.

'Major Crichton, may I present Lieutenants Walmsley and Munroe, Corporal Horrigan and Private Ely. Here for the familiarisation routine.'

Major Crichton had a no-nonsense look about him, a narrow and chiselled face, and a cool character.

'Get them around smartly, Captain Yates. In case you hadn't noticed, the dons are here in force.' He added more in an undertone, which sounded rather uncomplimentary, though nobody caught the content.

'Right, follow me,' announced Yates, leading us to the right. The floor of the hangar at this point was divided up into large cubicles by sheets of plywood, and we were led into the first enclosure.

'Art deco dustbin?' commented Nick.

'No, it's a giant's pepperpot,' I riposted. Horrigan and Ely remained wisely silent.

Our descriptions referred to what did, indeed, resemble a giant silver-grey pepperpot, one studded with dozens of small blue hemispheres, absent the top.

'This is the remains of a Dalek,' announced Yates. Aha! Now I recognised it.

'Where's the turret gone? And the sink-plunger?' asked Nick. True, this thing did resemble the photographs in our information dossier, yet it lacked exactly what Nick remarked on.

'Well, this article was recovered three-quarters of a mile from Auderly House after the explosion, buried to the bottom of the chassis, in the middle of a flower bed. We never found the "turret", as you call it, and the gun and prosthetic were smashed to bits. The occupant had been reduced to a thin green slime by the blast. It's been cleaned out several times, for all that's worth. Still stinks to high heaven.'

Nick felt the need to test that out. His wrinkled brow and hasty withdrawal confirmed Yates' statement.

'And over there in the corner are more Dalek remains.'

Over we went, for a nosey. A turret unit, as Nick described it, sat on the floor, next to an array of detached prosthetic weapons and manipulators. There were several more of the art deco pepperpots, in different colour schemes, missing various vital parts of their anatomy.

'These characters are the scourge of the galaxy, if you believe the Proctor,' commented Captain Yates, or so I thought at the time, not paying full attention. 'Utterly ruthless imperialists. Make the Nazi's look like cub scouts with kindly intentions.'

The shell of the Dalek measured about half an inch in thickness, and consisted of a curious material that didn't seem to be either metal or plastic. The numerous hemispheres on the exterior of the artefact had corresponding interfaces on the inside, incredibly elaborate sockets that had once lead to the creature living inside this mobile prison.

'Who's the strongest person here?' asked Yates, smirking. Well, it had to be me. Eighteen stone and six two, rugby player, in prime condition. Yates nodded towards a sledge-hammer off in the corner. 'Perhaps the Lieutenant might like to test his strength against the Dalek unit?'

The sledge weighed about twenty pounds, so I took a good long step back from the grey pepperpot, whirled the hammer around my head and leapt at it, full tilt.

With a penetrating _clack!_ the head of the hammer broke from the handle, striking sparks from the Dalek, allowing me to complete an undignified pirouette and almost impale Private Ely on the sharp end of the hammer handle.

'Nice dance steps,' commented Nick.

Recovering both my balance and dignity, I inspected the Dalek base unit. It bore no trace whatsoever of my sledgehammer assault.

Captain Yates gave an impressed nod.

'Never seen anyone hit it quite _that_ hard. Hmm. I suppose we'll have to indent for another sledgehammer. Anyway, my point has been made. You only knock a Dalek out with a shaped charge or a Chieftan tank. A Wombat will kill them, a Jimpy won't.'

He pointed over at the assembled weapons.

'Those are area-effect weapons, which the lab boys have called "blasters". Effective range is about fifty yards, and they'll affect anyone in a beaten zone of ten square yards. Oh, they can also be adapted to either kill or paralyse.'

Neat trick. Inflict death or hangover at the flick of a button. We were given a little time to pick up and handle the weapons, which possessed a convincing weight and realistic detailing.

'Time to move on to Exhibit B,' announced Yates. Out we marched, from one cubicle to another, one decorated with silver robots. Big silver robots, at least seven feet tall.

'The Cybermen,' introduced the captain. 'Which, despite appearances, are not robots.'

By now my prejudice against judging a book by it's cover had been well and truly worn down. Very well, they weren't robots.

'If they aren't robots, what are they?' asked Horrigan.

'They look like robots,' muttered Nick, who was dwarfed by the nearest mechanical monster, which appeared to have a miniature searchlight set on top of it's head. More upright versions over in a corner possessed big hand-grips where a human had ears. They all bulged with plastic and alloy and metal cables that mimicked muscles, with complex chest units, and yet again there were weapons, stored on a trestle table. I experimentally lifted one, only to drop it heavily back onto the table, surprised.

'Weighs an absolute ton!' I exclaimed.

The device was no more than a long rod with cabling at one end and a small parabolic dish at the other. Lifting what should have been only a few ounces in fact turned into lifting several pounds. Nick gestured at what looked like a kid's idea of a ray-gun, all silver struts and rods with a flaring muzzle. The handle looked battered, and the surface had been scored and pitted down one side.

"OPERATION MERLIN recovery, International Electromatics. Cyberweapon. Damaged in action, non-functional" read the label below it.

'Think you can lift it, Hercules?' asked Nick.

Captain Yates looked on with amusement. The damn thing weighed as much as a Jimpy and it was a struggle to even level it. When I dropped it, the table creaked.

'Non-human technology, you see. Not designed for human muscles. Don't get too close to them, they stink appallingly. You asked what they were, Corporal? A combination of machine and a humanoid creature within it. They very possibly looked like you or me, until a lot of surgery and mechanical mucking-about made them look like this. The humanoid bit is still sealed in those machine exteriors, which we are loath to crack open. Cybermen share a few qualities with the Daleks – utterly ruthless, aggressive imperialists, no emotions whatsoever. Entirely logical. They only attack those they can overcome. For reasons not entirely clear to me, they also have a long-standing hatred – if that's the right word – of the Daleks.'

We kept a safe nasal distance from the silver giants after the warning. I looked at them with a degree of wonder. Why would you transform yourself from a living, breathing near-human being into these metal monstrosities?

'Do they get special advantages from being tinned-up like this?' asked Horrigan.

Yates laughed out loud at the newly-coined term.

'Yes. Yes, they do. Any damage that isn't terminal can be replaced. If Johnny Cyberman loses an arm, no problem, he just pops down to Stores and gets another.'

'Where do they come from?' asked Nick, peering up at the mouthpiece of the Cyberman mounting his own private searchlight.

'Need to know, I'm afraid, as none of us has clearance. I know how they recruit.'

He left a dramatic pause for effect after speaking. We all paid attention.

'They kidnap human beings, drug them, brainwash them, chop out parts of their brains, replace the missing bits with computers and then replace all their body parts with machinery.'

My brow wrinkled in distaste at this. Pretty repugnant characters, these Cybermen. Not the sort to take home to meet Mother.

'As I mentioned before, they can replace their body parts the way your or I swap a fuse. Being cybernetic rather than flesh and blood means they are far less affected by blast, shrapnel, gas, atmosphere or lack of it, heat, cold, hunger or thirst.'

'I take it we're seeing different versions of the same basic thing here,' commented Nick. His attention was directed to a peculiar construction over in another corner of the cubicle, a seemingly purposeless collection of components in a framework six feet high, which I can only compare to a futuristic version of the Apollo lunar lander. Like the other cybermen, it consisted entirely of silvered metal pieces, with the central core being blackened and warped.

'Ah, that. Once again, I can't tell you, except this time it's due to genuine ignorance. Nobody is quite sure exactly what it is, not even the doctor. It uses a human brain, which was in the central section, and is able – was able – to communicate on ultra-short wavelengths over interplanetary distances. File under "Miscellaneous".'

"OPERATION MERLIN recovery, International Electromatics, office suite. Cybertechnology, purpose unknown. Destroyed in action. Non-functional." said the label.

'No need to hit anything with a sledgehammer this time,' commented Yates. 'The chest unit is a Cyberman's vulnerable spot. Smash that and they die, or throw some gold dust in and they die.'

Gold dust? I'd need to re-read that dossier, it didn't mention gold that I recalled.

The four of us took a good look at the static displays, big silver non-robots looking hostile even if they were dead, at the table of discarded weapons and the mysterious disabled whatsit in the corner. Yates had been right when he'd told us the museum would be a convincing tour, persuasive enough to make us take UNIT and it's foes seriously.

The third section of panelled displays was devoted to my old friends the Autons, dozens of them, split evenly between those in blue boilersuits with only the crudest human features, and the grotesquely incongruous versions wearing cheap yellow jackets and huge boaters. On the now familiar trestle tables sat a huge block of resin, encasing a dark brown object. A smaller block of resin held a –

'That's a daffodil!' exclaimed Nick. Yes, it was, just like the one in our dossier. That would, in fact, make it a plastic daffodil. Obviously, an evil, wicked, thoroughly degenerate daffodil that you couldn't trust on it's own.

'What's this grotty little gnome?' asked Horrigan. The captain frowned darkly, making me think he was going to snap at the corporal. Instead he sighed and nodded.

'A little something the Master dreamed up as an – well, an assassination device would be closest to it.'

Curious, I stood closer to see exactly what lay encased in the resin. Horrigan's "grotty little gnome" just about summed it up properly – a two-foot long, dark brown figure, with crudely anthropomorphic features and big white fangs. Whilst whoever put it in the resin had been careful, it still displayed several holes and fracture lines, suggesting a broken vase put together with glue.

'It's activated by heat, which is why we stuck it inside a block of resin. I have to say it probably won't manage anything ever again, since I shot it full of holes when it tried to attack Miss Grant.'

Ah. Holes in grotty little gnome explained.

'Okay, so it's a small, repulsive assassin. I can see why you stuck it in a block of plastic. What about the flower next door to it?' asked Nick.

Yates smirked at us.

'Thought you'd ask that. It isn't a flower. Oh, it certainly looks like a daffodil, but in fact it's entirely plastic, and the Autons programmed it to spray a plastic film over the nose and mouth of whoever was in range.'

Ah. Encased flower explained.

My comrades toured the Auton artefacts with curiosity, a feeling I didn't share due to my earlier involvement with them months ago. In fact my feet took me to the open front of the cubicle, from where it was possible to look across the hangar at other cubicles on the far side. Light from both ends of the hangar streamed in, illuminating a small party of people in civilian clothes walking towards the far end of the hangar. Deduction meant they must be the dons from Cambridge the captain and Major Crichton had mentioned in not-too-flattering terms.

'Coming with us, Lieutenant?' asked Yates, from behind me. The Auton tour had finished, so we moved on to the next cubicle, starring Giant Killer Teddy Bears. Except these were Yeti. Yes, those Yeti, the ones from the Himalayas, who had flown into London on a package tour from Khatmandu. Frankly, the explanation Yates gave was so convoluted I couldn't make any sense of it at all, and was glad when we left for a tea break.

The facilities amounted to tea urns set up on tables in the very middle of the echoing hangar floor, flanked by plates of biscuits and wads, fronted by big enamel mugs. We'd been beaten to it by the Cambridge lot, half a dozen people including two women, who looked at us with undisguised dislike. The tweedy males in the party turned their backs on us, chatting sotto voce; the two women, a brunette and a longer-haired brunette, looked us over with cool appraisal, found us wanting and exchanged gossip between themselves. Being British Army officers, we naturally had to chat up these ladies; tradition and custom demanded it.

'Bags the strawberry blonde,' hissed Nick in my ear.

'You'll be lucky,' I warned him, reading body language in our civilian opposites. 'They don't want to know.' A shame, really, the long-haired one wore a short skirt and had nice legs. Her brunette friend, with unflattering National Health glasses and hair in a severe bun, glared at Nick and myself, so I sent her a high-watt smile, just to be contrary. Predictably she turned away, and hissed poison at her friend, if I knew women.

Nick, displaying bravery and foolishness in equal parts, went over to chat, and returned minutes later crestfallen, shaking his head.

'Fresh from Norway's glaciers,' he complained. 'No interest in men at all.'

Call me an opportunist swine, but Nick had given me an excuse to approach the ladies. The distance between us was only ten feet or so, yet it felt like the whole Atlantic when I crossed it. Mrs Bob noticed and hissed a warning to her friend.

Avoiding a salute, my first impression was that neither woman really wanted to talk to me.

'Sorry to intrude, Professor, Ma'am. I felt it incumbent upon myself to apologise for my idiot subaltern comrade. He is driven by his regimental tradition, not to mention a severely swollen, ah, self-opinion.'

Mrs Bob stifled a smirk at what she thought I was going to say. Her friend turned to look at me with more curiosity than hostility.

'How did you know I'm a professor?'

'Logic and deduction. Your age implies at least having a Master's in a specific field. Nobody out here at Swafham for research is going to be anything less than a specialist in a very rarefied area. We are talking about alien technology several centuries in advance of human science, after all, and you don't send out a few undergraduates to investigate that.'

She had a long, intelligent face, which crooked in a quizzical smile after my recounting.

'Thank you, mister –'

'Walmsley. Lieutentant John Walmsley, late of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, now somewhat reluctant recruit to UNIT.'

Both women exchanged looks.

' - mister Walmsley. I am Liz Shaw, once upon a time also a reluctant UNIT recruit. This is Mrs Elaine Valdupont, on attachment from the University of Lyon.'

'Enchante, madamoiselle,' I replied, not sure if the accent was quite right. Mrs Valdupont's eyebrows rising into her hairline suggested it was.

'Why did you feel the need to come apologise to us?' asked Mme Valdupont in precise English, putting a sharp intonation to the question. 'You do not know us. We have never met.' _And never will again_, she must have been hoping.

'Common sense, and self-preservation. You are the people researching our hideous alien foes. As one who might be fighting those very same hideous alien foes, I'd like to feel you had our best interests at heart, instead of being embarrased by hormonally-driven lotharios.'

Liz Shaw sipped her tea, thinking of a reply. Mme Valdupont shook her head in disapproval.

'Too many long words, Lieutenant. You need not impress us with your loquacity.'

Who was using long words?

'Ah, Mme Valdupont. I try hard to articulate, having only graduated in Political Science, which lacks the artistic depth of the humanities. Anyway, au revoir, and good bye, Miss Shaw.'

Back to our little khaki group, where Nick glared at me with ill-concealed competitive dislike.

'Oh, you fancy Miss mini-skirt, don't you, matey! Bloody show off. Remember your girlfriend.'

'It helps if you treat her as an equal. I bet you thought she was the office secretary!'

'If we've quite finished?' enquired Captain Yates. 'Er – nice to see you again, Liz,' he finished, almost looking at Miss Shaw.

'Good bye, Captain Yates,' she replied, in a totally neutral tone. Well, she did say "a reluctant UNIT recruit", didn't she.

Back to the wooden cubicles again. Axons, Silurians, Primords, Mind Parasites, Daemons – the tour took another four hours, with a whole panoply of bizarre creatures and machines to take in.

Captain Yates seemed equally fagged out by evening, especially since he must have seen everything several times and even fought the Autons at close range pretty recently.

'Rather puts things into perspective,' he stated when we got back to the Landrover. All ideas about UNIT carrying out silly, pointless cloak-and-dagger poncing around had indeed gone out the window.

'What's the deal with Professor Shaw, sir?' I asked, being cursed with a nosey nature. 'Ex-UNIT, from what I could gather.'

Yates seemed a little embarassed.

'Ah, yes. Liz got inducted into UNIT under an obscure part of the Emergency Powers Act, and wasn't too pleased about it. We parted company under a cloud. A shame, really; we all liked Liz.'

Nick pointed a thumb at me.

'Lieutenant Walmsley's fallen for her charms, sir.'

I paused in the act of opening the door.

'She may be brunette and leggy – and mid-thigh isn't a mini-skirt, Nick – but she has the invisible attraction –' and here I wondered why that went down so hideously with Nick, who pulled a horrified face ' – of intelligence, which I find sexy in a woman. Sir?', I plunged on, the last word addressed to Captain Yates, who looked as alarmed as Nick had. Nick rolled his eyes and pointed over my shoulder.

Of course, inevitably, when I turned round, Liz Shaw stood there, looking – well, maybe annoyed, maybe amused. My face went crimson, hot enough to toast bread on.

'I heard my name mentioned, Lieutenant Walmsley, and came to investigate. Imagine what I heard!'

My tongue unfroze.

'Ah – yes. Sorry if it offended you. Er – intended as compliment only. Stout party collapses and retires to Landrover.'

Suiting action to words I swung into the passenger seat, knowing that everyone else was grinning delightedly at me in my hour of humiliation.

Liz Shaw tapped on the window, which I wound down, anticipating a cutting despatch.

'As a scientist, I shall have to analyse the data to determine a response, Lieutenant. Goodbye!' and she stalked off to her car, where Mme Valdupont stood like a vulture.

There came a burst of laughter from the rear of the vehicle, which got several seconds of blunt Anglo-Saxon repartee in reply from me. Captain Yates drove away, grinning like a Cheshire cat. When we got nearer the gates he leant closer to me.

'You got off lightly there, you know. If Liz is annoyed, you know about it. Terrific left-handed slap,' he finished, quietly.

Since our return to Aylesbury would be long after the mess closed, we stopped off at Bedford on the way back again, dining on chips and bacon barms. The car park at UNIT lacked the yellow antique roadster of yesterday. Must have gone for it's MOT.

'Okay, report to the QMS tomorrow at oh-nine-hundred for issue of weapons,' instructed Captain Yates.

Corporal Horrigan and Private Ely saluted us and went off to their quarters, as they'd been planning a game of poker on the way back.

'Have a quick one in the mess?' queried Nick. 'It'll help you get over lovely Liz Shaw and her short dress.'

He got a punch on the arm for that, and the first round in, too.


	4. UNIT UK: First Encounter

**Part Four: First Encounter**

Settling down to a new routine at Aylesbury wasn't too difficult, since the UNIT force there followed Regular Army routines and customs. The icing on the cake was that the soldiers there might be called out at short notice to deal with alien invasions, mad robots or intelligent reptiles reclaiming the Earth, and that took a little getting-used to. Not as much as one might imagine. Having toured UNIT's black museum at Swafham Prior enabled sprogs like me to get up to speed pretty quickly; coming face-to-face with motorised dustbins like the Daleks helps the new chap adjust smartish.

Having Nick Munroe around helped. He was an Army officer from an Army family, with relatives scattered throughout the Army, overseas and in the MoD. His first name doubled as a nickname, since he claimed to be able to get anything you wanted, for whatever the market would stand. This wasn't idle chatter; for twenty-five pounds he obtained one hundred and forty four .45 calibre ACP rounds for my personal pistol, within twelve hours of being asked. Normally it takes me a trip to a gunsmiths, a special order and a week to get anything. Being in UNIT cramped his freewheeling operations a little, but only a little.

There were also a number of civilian specialists based at Aylesbury, recruited into UNIT, willingly or not. Several of the military personnel worked in plain clothes on occasion, meaning you might meet a burly, short-haired young man in denim, nursing a copy of the New Statesman in one hand and a Browning Hi-Power in the other. Or, a ditzy young lady in a mini-skirt, who would manage to trip you up or fall down the stairs at the most inappropriate moment.

Thus, I first met a person who figures largely in the annals of UNIT. It was not, as literary folks say, an auspicious beginning.

My rota for the morning included touring Aylesbury to check the blood group, medical history, tissue type and nearest living relative or significant other of the staff there. Boring work, hardly in the forefront of fighting alien invasion, yet just the sort of task fobbed off to the most recent inductee. I wandered the corridors, the stairways and the various rooms, ticking off boxes on my clipboarded chart, annoying one and all. The Brigadier was especially prickly, his moustache twitching indignantly when asking about "significant other".

'That, Lieutenant, is entirely none of your business, official or otherwise! My personal details are on file under GS142 in the War Office. Good bye!.'

One to file under experience, John lad.

Which brought me to B2 corridor, between the Quarter Master's offices and the rest of the pre-fab offices attached to the rear of Aylesbury. As I walked through the door at one end, another customer walked through the door at the opposite end. He would have been hard to miss in civvy street, and much less so here, at least six feet tall, with a wild array of white hair, clad in what looked like a cloak and smoking jacket.

'Can I help you, sir?' I bristled, thinking that this wierdo had strayed out of their own quarters and into the military section.

'Yes, you can, young man, by getting out of my way and letting me through,' he replied, nonchalantly.

'Indeed, sir, and why might I do that?' I replied, with a slight edge to my voice.

'Because I am the doctor,' he replied, simply. Instantly, visions of Lt Walmsley being subject to court martial for failing to allow medical access sprang to mind.

'Good Lord! Go right through! I'm sorry, sir, nobody warned me.'

Only afterwards did I wonder why a civilian doctor would be in attendance at Aylesbury. Nor did he look the part – most doctors wear a suit and tie, not cast-offs from Victorian stage productions. I sought out Captain Yates, who was laboriously typing up reports in his office.

'Got a minute, sir?' I enquired. He pushed his chair back on it's castors and looked grateful for the interruption.

'Any good at typing, John? Damn. We can't afford to get trained typists with clearance, you know. Cigarette?'

'No thanks, sir. Allergic to tobacco.'

'Really? That's unfortunate. Well, what did you want to see me about?'

'I just met a civvie on the way back into the main buildings, sir. He said he was a doctor, and I hastily got out of his way. Then I wondered why he wasn't carrying a little black bag, and where he got his dress sense from, because as far as I know Surgeon Lieutenant Sullivan is the MO on strength.'

The captain looked at me shrewdly.

'Tall chap, distinguished-looking, lots of white hair? Yes? Then you've met the Doctor. Not "a" doctor, small "d", just the Doctor. Don't worry, he isn't up to anything sinister.'

'I didn't think so, sir, or he'd never have gotten in here.' Curiosity got the better of me. 'What is he? A consultant like Liz Shaw?'

A smirk and shake of the head from Yates said no.

'Officially, he's UNIT's Special Scientific Adviser, Doctor John Smith. Liz Shaw actually used to work with him, before going back to Cambridge.'

He took several seconds to exhale cigarette smoke, making me wait for the rest.

'Unofficially, he's an alien, with the same origin as the Master. Working for UNIT gives him protection, a roof over his head and all the equipment he can lay his hands on.'

An alien? For an alien he looked amazingly human.

'There's more about him, which I'll let you learn for yourself. He's frequently here, or at Haylings, so the odds are that you'll encounter him again.'

Weeks before, my reaction would have been incredulous scorn, followed by a good laugh at the captain's expense in the mess. Now, I left him tapping away two-fingered on his typewriter, wondering if this Doctor John Smith would cross my path again. An alien? Reposing behind the sensible wooden doors and mock-Georgian façade of Aylesbury was a being from another world?

Of course, John, you need to get personal details from this mysterious alien. Complete your charts. Satisfy your nosiness.

A check with the Guard Room informed me that the Doctor would be "where he always is – in his lab." A check on a corridor wall display showed where the laboratory sat – in a basement, accessed via a spiral staircase, part of the establishment unvisited by me to date.

The double doors to the lab weren't locked or barred, so I boldly went in, not knowing what to expect. The thing that immediately struck a visitor was a battered blue police box over in a corner of the room.

How did that get here! I wondered silently. Getting it down the spiral stairs and into the basement must have been an awkward job.

There was no visible sign of Doctor Smith at first, although he had many benches, racks of chemicals, retort stands, shelves and miscellaneous scientific gadgets to hide behind.

'Hello?' I called out. 'Doctor Smith?'

Abruptly, he stood up from behind a set of benches, clad in a dark lab coat, not looking especially pleased to see me.

'Aha! One of the Brigadier's little tin soldiers, eh? What do you want this time? Predictions about the future again? Military technology of the year 2000? Out of the question!' he finished, fiddling with a complex, miniature electronic component. Apart from the first second of our meeting, he didn't bother to look at me.

'Ah. You have me mistaken for someone else, Doctor Smith. I'm here to get personal information about yourself for future use in emergencies. Er – no need to predict anything.'

This time he looked at me, seemingly interested.

'What kind of personal information, might I ask?'

I explained briefly. Part of my attention focussed on what Doctor Smith looked like; incredibly human, actually.

'There is only one person on this planet with the same blood group as myself, Lieutenant, and since he would dearly like to see me dead, I can't count on him.'

'The Master?' I guessed. Doctor Smith nodded.

'Well, sir, if you really are a unique group I strongly recommend that you donate your own blood on a regular basis for any future emergency,' I sternly warned him.

'Hmm. Yes. Do you know, that's what Liz told me to do. Never quite got around to making time for it,' he said, scratching his eyebrow in a tic, almost embarrased at the admission.

A tick in the "N/A" box for "Blood Group", then. Similar for tissue type.

'Er – medical history, Doctor Smith?' I prompted. He wagged a finger at me.

'Tut tut, Lieutenant! My medical details will be on file already. You remember? From my time at the Ashbridge Cottage Hospital, when I returned here.'

No, I didn't remember, but I made a note of the hospital name for future reference. So Doctor Smith was already a client of the National Health Service? Then he must be stuck on Planet Earth, if that experience hadn't made him want to leave urgently.

'Sorry, sir, last question. Next of kin.'

His brows darkened and he glared at me.

'Really, Lieutenant! I must protest at this intrusion! You are disturbing and delaying important research work, and I refuse to answer any further questions. Good day!'

Bundled out of the laboratory, my return to the main building was not exactly crowned with glory. Captain Beresford took my collated details when I reported in.

'Sorry for a couple of exclusions, sir. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart stated that his personal details were already on file at the War Office, and Doctor Smith – er – well, Doctor Smith –'

'I quite understand, John,' stated the captain, mildly. 'We can get the Brig's details from Whitehall easily enough. The Doctor is another matter. Are you up to chasing his details? Sorry to palm this off on you. He's the Brigadier's personal responsibility, you see, since he has no official existence, and he can be extraordinarily stubborn about yielding to authority.'

Apart from a few ineffectual phone calls, any chasing of Doctor Smith's details got delayed indefinitely, since the new arrivals were due to attend a weapons lecture in the Armoury at eighteen hundred. The trainer in question turned out to be Sergeant Benton, whom I treated with wary respect. He struck me as a man soft on small children and lost dogs; enemies of the Crown on the other hand, extra-terrestrial or otherwise, he would stamp into the floorboards until they were a sticky red smear.

'This is our Emergency Response Kit,' he announced, his voice echoing through the dank, smelly tunnel entrance that constituted the user portion of the firing range. The Kit looked like a briefcase, with combination locks. Sergeant Benton dialled up the numbers on the two locks and opened the case, to reveal what looked like a tape recorder inside, complete with a microphone on a long cord.

'Short-range, ultra-high frequency radio transmitter, working on the megahertz wavelengths. Used against Autons, or Nestenes, call them what you will. Effective range is about six feet, so it can only be used as an ambush weapon.'

Next on display came a child's air pistol

'This is an adaptation of a wartime pistol called Wel-Rod. Silent, and the ammo is made of gold. Special low-velocity stuff that dum-dums on impact, the better to affect a large area. Used against –' and he pointed at me to see if Lieutenant Walmsley had done his homework.

'Gold – has to be Cybermen,' I replied.

'Correct, sir. Cybermen. Each bullet costs a tenner, so you have to be careful with them and we only issue steel versions for training shoots.'

Next was a chalky block about half the size of a house-brick, with one face covered in green baize. A slim metal cylinder had been taped to the green fabric.

'Plastique. The fabric covers a special kind of glue, and this is a pencil fuse, adjustable from thirty seconds down to five. To use it you insert the fuse, rip the fabric off, set the fuse and stick to your target. Intended for –' and he pointed again.

Nick frowned.

'Glue? Not magnets. Not for metal, then. Oh – a Dalek?' he guessed.

Sergeant Benton nodded.

'Yes, sir. Specifically for them, given that they have weird non-metallic armour. The face under the fabric is shaped and lined with aluminium.'

'You'd have to be right up next to them,' observed Private Ely with disapproval.

'Another ambush weapon,' agreed the sergeant. 'Imagination will allow you to plan other mayhem with it.'

A clutch of nine-millimetre bullets were next, alongside a clip of seven six two rifle rounds.

'Silver bullets,' explained the sergeant, deadpan. 'Not as costly as the gold ones but pricey enough.'

'What do you use those for?' asked Nick.

'No idea myself, sir, not used them yet. Werewolves, I suppose.' He might have been joking. Or, he might not.

All officers on detached duty needed to sign for an Emergency Response Kit, which they had to then heft about until returning. There were several dotted around Aylesbury, and all vehicles needed to contain one when in use.

'Sergeant, this is all small arms equipment, for close range. Don't you have any heavy weapons for engaging at a distance?' asked Nick, a thoughtful expression on his features.

'Barring a couple of pintle-mounted Jimpy's and a pretty ropey bazooka dating from the Korean War, no sir. We did have a two-inch mortar but that went up with Auderly House. Emergencies have to be dealt with what we've got available at the time, which tends to be what we're carrying.'

Nick's face expressed what we later learnt to call "financial divining"; he'd spotted a business opportunity.

Once issued with ear protectors, we got the opportunity to loose off five rounds each with the special pistol at a dummy Cyberman, nicknamed "Elton", who rocked back on his metallic heels quite satisfactorily at each strike. The real thing, however, might not be so obliging.

We were also allowed to slap a block of plasticene coated in glue against a plywood Dalek chassis, dodging back and forth between the pillars of the underground tunnel, discovering that ambushing a Dalek wasn't very easy in real life.

'I don't think I can tell the lady wife what an exciting day I've had, sir,' commented Corporal Horrigan afterwards. 'Shooting cybernoids and blowing up Garlicks. She wouldn't understand.'

His words came back to me later that evening when making a call to my fiancee, Janine.

'No, no, I can't tell you what I'm doing. Terribly secret? Not half. If I told you the pair of us would be in prison. I miss you as well, but I don't have any choice, Jan. Look, I am due a two day pass in a week, so start planning, hey? Yes, I will even go shopping in Manchester with you. Love you too. Got to go, someone else wants the phone.'

They didn't really, it was just Nick Munroe, hovering.

'No mention of leggy Liz, was there?' he smirked.

'No, and I rang off because it's a given you'd start yarking in the background about her.'

'Your Jan can't trust you very much, then.'

I made a rueful face.

'Janice is the jealous type with a short fuse. Shoots first, apologises later.' He hadn't mentioned any significant female other in his life, had Nick, and he kept banging on about Liz Shaw. My suspicions were aroused.

Feeling fagged out, I went for an early night, taking care to write a postcard out to Jan before falling asleep over a copy of the Lancashire Lad.

Next morning, on duty at the unpleasant hour of oh six thirty, I encountered Doctor Smith in the canteen, staring at a bowl of porridge with furious intensity. Other personnel knew enough to give him a wide berth, something that came with practice, seeing that he was deep in calculation.

'Good morning, Doctor Smith!' was my cheerful opening greeting. He looked up at me with a disdainful expression.

'I fail to see what is good about it, Lieutenant. Word has reached me that the Sontarans are prevailing in their endless war against the Rutans. Driven by desperation, the Rutans are bound to try a gambit involving Earth, given that it exists in their arm of influence in the galaxy.' He turned over a spoon of porridge oats.

Digging into a plate of bacon, mushroom, sausage, beans and fried toast, I made what I hoped were encouragingly impressed eyes. Privately, it sounded like Battle of the Cough Mixtures to me.

Doctor Smith wasn't fooled by my expressive eyes.

'I suppose that sounded like gobbledygook to you, lieutenant?' he asked. I nodded, more concerned on finishing off breakfast before it got cold.

'Yes, well, I suppose I can't really blame you. Come the year 2075 and you will think differently, I assure you.'

'Oh? Why would that be?' I asked. The Doctor instantly coloured in embarassment.

'Er – nothing – never mind. Forget I mentioned it. Ah! Jo!' he exclaimed, in relief.

I expected Joe to be a burly soldier bearing a box full of electronic components. Instead she transpired to be that mini-skirted girl with the errant feet.

'Jo, can I introduce Lieutenant – actually I don't think you told me your name –'

'Lieutenant Walmsley,' I explained.

' – Lieutenant Walmsley. Good Grief! Not _that_ Walmsley!' he added, in what appeared to be genuine surprise. 'Say hello, Jo,' he continued, having regained his composure.

He appeared to know more about me than I did, which was worrying.

'While we're here, Doctor,' I mumbled around my food. 'Can I ask a favour from you?'

Without speaking, he cocked his head inquisitively.

'You said the NHS will have your records on file, from Ashbridge. To get them means obtaining your permission in writing, because I can't get those wretched bureaucrats to release their claws from the paperwork. You'd think it was written on hundred-pound notes.'

That amused him; he flourished a fountain pen and I passed over a sheet of headed paper, to which he wrote a full and unequivocal agreement that I could access his records on his behalf.

' "Doctor John Smith",' I read. 'Congratulations. You are the first John Smith I've ever met, for all that it's supposed to be a pseudonym. Thanks for the permission.'

'Not at all, Gen – ah, Lieutenant. Come on, Jo, we've work to do.' He got up to leave, then turned back for a parting shot.

'And do just call me "Doctor", dear chap. Everyone else does.'


	5. UNIT UK 5: Isolation

Part 5:Isolation 

Did I mention that the fixtures and fittings at Aylesbury were thoroughly ancient? Saying "ancient" in the sense of being "old and practically worn out", not in any way valuable. Every month brought a bill for electrical repair or plumbing sent to us from the REME fitters who got called out, and it was as well to keep the invoices out of the way of the Brig, who would otherwise turn purple with rage at the gross over-charging involved.

Nick tried to make capital out of this fiscal blackmail, and rapidly learnt to leave well alone.

'Only the Royal Electrical Blackmailers have security clearance to work here,' he told me in the mess over a sherry. 'No civvies at all, not after something that happened during the last lot of Auton activity.' Cue wise nodding of heads from the older officers present, who knew exactly what he was referring to and politely refrained from telling us. 'Now, the REME charge according to a peculiar scale that involves "Hazardous Duty pay", "Duty in aid of the civil power", "Emergency access priority deployment", "Mainland UK crisis aid" and "UNIT preferment compensation". And they charge for all of them at the same time.'

Nice work if you can get it. No wonder the Brig's blood pressure climbed into the stratosphere when a fuse went!

I have to say, however, that our resident boffin-stroke-weirdo-stroke-genius The Doctor used to come up with occasional answers to technical problems which meant no resort to the REME. Only if the solution was of benefit to himself and his very peculiar areas of research, and he was very wary of ever making such solutions public or well-known. His little black boxes helped us to maintain the central heating, the air conditioning and the telephone system, and were probably several decades ahead of their time.

Okay, not "probably". They _were_ several decades ahead of their time. Nick and I prised one of them open with a steak knife and discovered that it contained lots of small black plastic modules made in Korea in 1995. We looked at each other in puzzlement, then smashed it to bits and threw the bits in the Solid Waste bin, just to avoid being caught out. That's why the Aylesbury air-conditioning went funny in the autumn of 1975.

Anyway, about the fixtures and fittings. I found out the hard way about these, whilst en route to an O Group, preparation for a trip to Salisbury Plain and a joint exercise with the regular Army. I needed to get to the basement for a collection of target profiles, which approximated to the outlines of various extra-terrestrial bad guys. I dived into the lift on the top floor, in a hurry, only for the thing to stop on the next floor down, whereupon the Doctor got in.

He didn't speak, just gave me a polite nod, so I gave him one back. Politeness with the Doctor is advisable; he knows a lot more about everyone than they do themselves, not to mention being a black belt whatever-dan, and having a cutting wit besides.

The genteel atmosphere lasted no more than two seconds before the lift jolted massively to one side, screeching metallically as it did so, then stopped abruptly. The lights went out.

'Oh dear,' said the Doctor, wearily, whilst my response was measured in Anglo-Saxon vernacular.

'You were trying to get somewhere?' he asked, an implicit condemnation of my cursing in every syllable.

'Yes! An Orders Group for the Salisbury exercise. And the targets. Fat chance of making either, now.' I fumbled around on the button panel and pressed the alarm button, which did nothing.

Abruptly, without any kind of warning, a pale green glow illuminated the interior of the lift. In the strange lighting I saw the Doctor wielding the light-source – a miniature radar-on-a-stick..

'Sonic screwdriver,' he explained, as if "sonic screwdriver" explained anything. The screwdrivers I was familiar with came from the hardware shop and worked on cross-head screws.

'I suppose we could try opening the doors,' I suggested.

'Not possible,' replied the Doctor. 'The lift jammed between two floors. You might get the doors open but you couldn't get out.'

'The emergency escape hatch?' I tried, pointing at the ceiling. Actually it's a service hatch, but I felt a sense of drama was appropriate.

'My dear chap,' said the Doctor, sounding amused. 'You couldn't possibly fit through that. Whilst I might be able to, I don't relish the idea of trying to rapell up or down greasy cables.'

He was right about Lieutenant Walmsley not fitting through the hatch. Stuck we were, then, until another party tried to use the lift or people missed me.

That took all of five minutes, when a worried voice shouted down the lift shaft to us. Whatever they yelled was inaudible due to distance, echoes and the sound-proofing within our cosy little cell. After a minute the lights came back on, allowing the Doctor to put away his sonic screwdriver. Despite my fond hopes, the lift remained static. Now I could stare at the walls in mock-daylight for however long it took to rescue us.

My attention wandered, and it wandered over to the Doctor, who sat quietly looking at an immensely thick and tattered diary.

Bloody hell, he did look incredibly human. After a few seconds intense scrutiny, he seemed to notice my staring and frowned at me.

'Whatever is the matter, Lieutenant?'

'Oh – was I staring? Sorry. Er – just that I've never seen a real live alien up close, and up close you look extremely human.'

He waved a hand dismissively, still reading in his diary.

'Only skin deep, Lieutenant. Even a cursory examination would reveal that I have two hearts.'

' "Two"?' I replied, wondering what bad jokes to make, then deciding that perhaps bad jokes were a bad idea. 'I wouldn't mention that, Doctor. You'll never hear the end of jokes about it.'

'Ahum,' he replied, only partly paying attention. 'Harry Sullivan can confirm it.'

'No he can't! He may look like a stuffed-shirt with a stiff-upper lip, but he's every inch the doctor. Client confidentiality.'

I got a look cast in my direction again.

'Then you'll just have to take it on trust that I won't sprout tentacles, won't you?'

'I didn't know aliens came equipped with sarcasm,' I muttered, which generated a grin.

'Oh, Lieutenant, it's patently obvious you're dying to ask questions. Go on, ask them. It's not as if we can go anywhere.'

'Why two hearts? Why not one, or three?'

'Evolution. That's how we evolved on Gallifrey. Two hearts gives us significant advantages in terms of metabolism, longevity, stamina and so on. Three – now, three would be greedy.'

'Alright. How is it that you look so incredibly human? Or – from your viewpoint – why do we resemble you so much?'

A smile from the Doctor, who must have heard this question a million times already.

'The humanoid design is robust and efficient, Lieutenant. Why, even here on Earth it's happened before – the Silurians, if you've been studying the Bestiary.' He paused to think a little. 'Also, if the Time Lords had exiled me to a planet like – Skaro, as an extreme example – then I'd stand out rather a lot. They didn't want that.'

Exile.

'I thought you were on the side of the good guys, Doctor – why did these Time Lords exile you? You don't have a dark past waiting to catch up with you?'

He took a deep breath and shook his head.

'The Time Lords hold to a strict policy of hands-off, observance-only, laissez-faire. No interference with other cultures. I, on the other hand, believe in getting my hands firmly on, and interfering whenever I think it advisable. The phrase they used of me was "incorrigibly meddlesome". And after a considerable time as a free agent, they eventually caught up with me.'

There were hints of considerable depth here, if you had the wit to notice. Exactly what a Time Lord was remained to be seen. A collection of super-scientific aristocrats?

'I see. What about The Master? Is he another Time Lord like you?'

Not the best way to phrase the question; there was fire in his eyes when the Doctor replied.

'A Time Lord, yes, but most certainly _not_ like me!' He caught himself and calmed down. 'The Master, as you surely realise, is quite irredeemably evil. He would think nothing of turning this whole planet, with it's charmingly naïve native population, into a giant cinder, for no more reason than to distress me.'

The bar steward. Sergeant Benton's sweepstake looked ever more attractive. I must remind myself to put a tenner on the unpleasant alien oik getting a sudden dose of high-speed lead.

'So you're an exile because you broke official rules. How does this exile thing work?'

In a tic I'd seen before, the Doctor scratched his brow.

'Well, all things considered, it was a rather cushy exile. My TARDIS dematerialisation circuitry was disabled and my memories of how to repair it were removed. Ergo, I was stuck here. Not only that, my appearance and personality altered completely due to regeneration.'

He then had to explain regeneration to me, simplifying it considerably to enable me to grasp the concept.

'Sounds like Captain Scarlet to me,' I said in an off-hand manner.

' "Captain Scarlet"? I'm sorry, I don't think I've met him. Recent recruit?'

I stared back at the Doctor, who seemed perfectly sincere.

'No, no, "Indestructible Captain Scarlet – dah-dah-dah-da-dah-da-dah." Kids television. You know. You don't know?'

Feeling that the shoe was on the other foot, I described Gerry Anderson's finest. At first the Doctor looked amused, then interested, then ended up looking rather worried.

'I think a little visit is in order,' he muttered to himself, making a note in his brick of a diary. 'Someone has been talking a century out of turn.'

'It's only a kids show!' I commented, frankly amazed.

He waggled his pen at me.

'Don't be so blasé, Lieutenant Walmsley, because once the Federated Concordat begins to explore Mars - '

Damn me if the lift didn't give a great big lurch and horrendous loud twangs resound within it just at that point as it got back in running order. I never got to find out what the Federation Concorde or whatever got up to on Mars and why the Doctor, interstellar alien visitor, got so hot under the collar about a kids TV programme. Couldn't be anything big, right? Right.

'Excellent!' said my fellow prisoner, happy that being stuck in a lift with a nosey officer was over so soon.

Creaking and grating, the lift got hauled back up to the floor above, where the doors were already prised apart and we both gratefully left the comfortless cubicle.

Our rescuers turned out to be Bessie and Jo, the elderly yellow roadster and the sporty young lady. While a dozen strapping young men in uniform stood around idly sucking their thumbs and waiting for REME to turn up and charge telephone numbers, Jo backed Bessie up to the front doors, tied a cable to the rear bumper, ran the cable upstairs and to the liftshaft, where she managed a clove hitch around the main lift cable. Then she drove forward about ten feet in first gear.

The Doctor thanked her loudly, and so did I. The Brig happily rang to cancel the REME team, and I even made it to the exercise on Salisbury Plain only an hour late – the Doctor flew me there in his delta-hover-jet-ski-plane, a truly terrifying experience. At mess the Brig commented, only mildly sarcastically, on the lack of initiative amongst the soldiery who'd stood by to see Jo solve the problem.

'It was the Lieutenant, sir,' said Nick Munroe, going at his roast beef. 'He weighs so much it takes a 150 horsepower engine to lift him. Not possible for human muscles,' to a chorus of appreciative sniggers.

I didn't reply as my plate was piled high with food – hey, it was a hard exercise and I'd worked up an appetite. My revenge was to borrow two well-greased heavy duty jacks from the vehicle workshops, wait until Nick went to bed, sneak into his room, stick the jacks under his bed and raise it a metre.

At breakfast he walked in delicately, having literally fallen upon his arse from a great height.

'That'll teach you to get a lift out of me,' I told him.


	6. UNIT UK 6: A Nice Little Seaside Trip

**Part Six: A Nice Little Seaside Trip**

Not long after the lift incident I got a summons to Captain Beresford's office.

'Take a seat, John,' he said after acknowledging my salute. A set of untidy scrawled papers sat on the desk in front of him.

'The condemned bravely took a seat,' I murmured. The Captain noticed and smiled wryly.

'Not far wrong. 'Fraid I'm going to have to move you up on the Maiden's Point roster, John, you and the other three most recent inductees.'

My stomach sank, also my spirits, and my mouth made a downturn. I had expected to get a forty-eight hour pass soon, getting back to my fiancee, who by now was probably forgetting what I looked like. A duty tour at Maiden's Point meant a month away from civilisation, according to the induction dossier.

'Any particular reason why, sir?' asked in a carefully neutral tone.

'Yes. Corporal Forbes' wife has gone into labour two weeks early. The Brig wants him lifted out today, together with the other three longest-serving men. That means four replacements go in, being yourself, Nick Munroe, Corporal Horrigan and Private Ely.'

Great. Sentenced to a place described as both "boring" and "creepy" for a month.

'So, to cut your agony short, John, you need to be packed and ready to go in an hour. Notify the others, will you? To sweeten the pill, you'll only be making up the difference for those leaving, so your tour is only for two weeks, not four.'

Half a loaf!

'Yes, sir. Do we need a travel docket?'

'No. Windmill 123 will fly you there and bring the others back. The Brig wants Corporal Forbes' with his wife in short order, make no mistake. So, helipad by eight hundred hours.'

My thoughts were not of a kind or gentle nature whilst tracking the others down to inform of our imminent destination. Horrigan and Ely took things good-naturedly. Lieutenant Munroe felt the need to swear, kick his bed, then his desk and finally his wardrobe, which made alarming clinking noises.

'Your dress uniform braided with glass?' I sarcastically remarked. More swearing. The Duty Officer on inspection might be interested in a wardrobe that sounded like a milk crate of empties. Knowing Nick, it must be either champagne or whisky in there. Beer didn't have enough profit margin.

'Typical Army! I needed to do a deal with the Mess Sergeant today and now there's no chance. He'll have got another supplier by the time we get back.'

'Whatever you say. Assemble on the helipad with full house by eight hundred. From what the captain said I think Lethbridge-Stewart will be watching our departure himself, just to make sure we leave on time.'

When I left the front of the HQ, to take the track off eastwards to the helipad waiting shelter, who crossed my path but Doctor Smith, driving the yellow antique down the gravel path. I stopped to let him pass, but unexpectedly he stopped abreast of me.

'Going on a journey, Lieutenant? Can I offer you a lift?'

It was generous of him, given that he barely knew me, and it lifted my expression of gloom momentarily.

'Thank you, Doctor Sm- Doctor. No need. Off to Maiden's Point by helicopter.'

His brow drew together in consternation.

'Maiden's Point. Maiden's Point? Why does that seem familiar. Oh, those Time Lords and my memory!'

'Er – quite,' I agreed, politely. He snapped his fingers together.

'Aha! Yes, Maiden's Point. Lieutenant, whatever you do, _stay out of the water_. Remember that!' and off the yellow relic went. Pretty smartly, too, for a car at least fifty years old.

Stay out of the water. Sound advice. Not only didn't I pack my trunks, the chilly Easter weather off the north-east coast would dissuade any but seals from going swimming.

The helicopter we flew north in – Windmill 123 - was cramped, almost unendurably, with four men, the pilot and four sets of personal equipment, including weapons.

'I'd have brought a smudge along, sir, if I'd known it were going to be this tight,' apologised Corporal Horrigan for the umpteenth time when his SLR barrel caught me in the ribs again.

'The lieutenant shouldn't be so overweight,' weighed in Nick Munroe. 'He takes up two other people's places.' He got favoured with a hundred-watt glare. 'Maybe three.'

'Have you seen "The Battle of Britain"?' I asked. My sarcastic subaltern colleague nodded. Every small boy and adolescent had seen the film when it came out or on re-release. 'Impressive aerial shots, weren't they?' Another nod from Nick, who looked puzzled. 'Do you know how they got them?' Shake of head from Nick. 'They took a cameraman, put him in a harness, then dangled him from a helicopter at five thousand feet. Like to try it?' and I rattled one of the safety harnesses in the helicopter.

'Coming in to Maiden's Point, five minutes to arrival, please check your harnesses are secure,' interrupted the pilot, who had remained totally uncommunicative until then. The ghost of a smile played around his lips when I looked.

Looking down at North Yorkshire from a vantage of several thousand yards, the approach to Maiden's Point looked balmy and idyllic. Moorland, heather, gorse, sand and shingle beaches, frothing breakers, pine plantations. No reason to worry about a duty assignment here. We went over the perimeter fence too fast to notice it, losing height rapidly en route to the helipad way over in a corner.

Four men in uniform waited thirty yards away, racing towards the helicopter once it touched down, led by a grinning corporal. Forbes, no doubt.

'Good luck!' I yelled over the engine noise, giving him a slap on the back. He returned a thumbs-up and the four lucky escapees left in a cloud of sand and grass cuttings.

'Hello Maiden's Point,' muttered Ely, hefting his kitbag. 'Looks like a holiday resort.'

A weatherbeaten sergeant came striding over to us, snapping a smart salute in front of me.

'Sergeant Whittaker, sir. You must be Lieutenant Walmsley. If you'll follow me I can show you all to your quarters.'

Nick and I got to share a small pre-fab hut; Corporal Horrigan bunked with the NCO's and Private Ely got the big dorm building, another pre-fab. Our minute officer's des res had a small bathroom, a television, faded copies of "Country Life", "Soldier" and "Friends Weekly" on a small table, beds, wardrobe, cabinet and dead flies on the windowledge.

The Sergeant came back to collect me ten minutes later, catching me stretching the stiffness out after the cramped helicopter.

'Sir, you are the senior officer on site now, officially Officer Commanding. Are you familiar with the layout of Maiden's Point?'

Big nod from me. I'd rapidly read the induction dossier, better known as "The Bestiary", while packing at Aylesbury, since it wouldn't be leaving UNIT territory for an airborne trip, and there was a schematic of the site in a folder in the back. Three sets of accomodation for officers, non-coms and privates, respectively; canteen, radio shed, stores shed, latrines, site generator, guard tower, helipad and rifle range. The whole site, all square mile-and-a-half of it, was surrounded by a ten foot fence topped with razor wire. Cliffs on the side facing the sea led down to a small beach and sheltered cove, and there were marker bouys out in the North Sea that notified an exclusion zone.

'Supposedly, sir, we have a full platoon here, thirty men, half on duty and half off.' There was a pregnant pause so I nodded. 'However, we've modified the routine. Three days off in the month for every member, leaving twenty seven on duty at any one time. Of those, two are on duty in the radio room, two in the guard tower and two more on misk duties. Windmill One Two Three lifts out the brick that's served a full month on a daily basis, replacing them with another brick. Okay, sir?'

The garrison here must have reasons for sorting out their time and manpower like this. No rush to change it from me, not till I saw how it ran.

'Go on.'

'That leaves three squads of seven, each of whom does an eight-hour stag on patrol, standby or off-duty. Each squad splits into a brick of four and a brick of three for patrolling. The four-man brick does the perimeter, the buildings, the old MOD site and the beach in daylight. The three-man brick has a random schedule and route, worked out by computer in Aylesbury. When you're on standby you're in uniform and with kit ready, but still indoors, and you do the canteen. Off-duty you can do what you like. Same with the days off.'

'Okay, seems fine for the moment.'

'Would you like to see the site, sir? Yes? We can get a better view from up the tower.'

I got several deep breaths of seaside air whilst walking to the tower. The day looked set to be clear and bright up here on the Yorkshire coast, with a brisk sea breeze, racing wisps of cloud and a bright blue sky.

The tower was a scaffold and sheet iron construction, rusted yet robust enough and pretty similar to what you'd expect in Ulster, trailing a set of cabling that powered a pair of small searchlights set diametrically on the observation platform.

A brace of privates snapped to attention when I managed to wriggle through the trap, doubtless hiding smiles at seeing my bulk squeezing uncomfortably into their post.

'Sorry about that, sir,' apologised Whittaker. 'I don't think we've had anyone your size up here before. I'll have one of the miskers plane it.'

'No, don't bother, sergeant. You'd have to resize the trapdoor.'

'Oh, don't worry about that, sir. No lack of time for fatigues here. Anyway, here's where you get a good view. Snape – glasses.' Private Snape handed over his binoculars and the sergeant in turn handed them to me. Looking north-east brought a small town into focus. Sweeping the glasses around, I saw unspoilt moorland, heath, rolling hills and straggling country roads, then another small town to the south-east. Continuing the sweep took my view over the sea, glassy, green and with whitecaps whipped up by the breeze.

'Very picture-postcard,' I commented.

'They all say that. At first, anyway,' drily added the sergeant. He pointed to the north-west. 'That's Staithes, and to the south you've got Port Mulgrave. Oh, and you might have missed them, but there's bouys out on the sea that mark out a Marine Exclusion Zone, about a couple of miles square.'

'Okay, let's take a walk around the buildings.' Another slightly embarassing squeeze down the trap later and we got to walk around the various buildings. Nothing very interesting, just pre-fabs or corrugated iron.

'Why no beach patrol at night? Safety?' I asked. Whittaker nodded.

'The cliffs are dangerous enough in broad daylight, sir. Any path set into them erodes away in no time, so it's difficult getting up and down even when you can see what you're doing. We've got knife-rests we pull across the paths on the last daylight patrol.'

Okay, fine. Last question for a while:

'Last question, Sergeant Whittaker. Why are we here guarding a square mile of moorland?'

His wise, experienced face broke into a frown.

'That, sir, is quite the question, quite the question. Nobody ever told me, nor any of the men who served here with me. It isn't in any of the handbooks, or Operation histories. I think the clue was in the old Naval Research Station they had here, during the war.'

From the tone of his voice there seemed to be more of the story. However, for the moment there was no more, as he suddenly got abashed at being so speculative in front of an officer, and an unknown one at that.

'Anyway, sir, you four have been slotted into the rota. You're all on Standby, until eighteen-hundred hours, then you go off duty. On duty at oh two hundred till ten hundred hours. After nine days you get a day off. The master rota is in the radio shed, sir, if you need to check it.'

Off he went, leaving me to enjoy the walk back to the officer's shack. I informed Nick of the salient facts about Maiden's Point, the garrison and the rota.

'Standby. Code for "sit on bum being bored". What entertainment is there in the armpit of North Yorkshire?' he complained.

'Television.'

'Opiate of the masses, dear boy. I mean activities!'

'The squaddies have laid out a soccer pitch.'

'Pooh! The scion of an ancient and noble Scottish family does not demean himself playing the sport of peasants.'

'The scion's _head_ will get used as a football if he expresses himself like that,' I scolded. 'You can go fishing.'

'No I can't,' and he shook his so emphatically his red hair flew.

'Sea,' I said, pointing vaguely east. 'Water. Fish.'

'Barbed wire,' he riposted, 'Beach. Impassable.'

I got up from my bed and stared at him.

'True enough. I got a good view from the helicopter when we came in. Barbed wire, ten yards deep, all along the beach at the waters edge, coming back up inland to meet the perimeter fence.'

Hmm. No fishing then. No paddling, either. Aha! I snapped my fingers.

'No waiter service in here,' said Nick.

'Buffoon. Have you met the Doctor?'

'Which one? That twit from the rum-swiggers union or the weirdo with white hair?'

'The latter.'

'Yes I have. And he is weird. Do you know, he keeps a full-size police box in his underground lair.'

'I know that. Before we left, he warned me not to go in the water at Maiden's Point, pretty much hinting terrible things would happen if I did. Looks like someone took his advice already and removed the temptation.'

Nick burrowed in his kit for cigarettes, offering one to me before he remembered.

'Ah, no good can come from a man who keeps a police-box in his secret laboratory. A full-size one, mind you.'

'Baffoon. I'm trying to think of useful diversions for the garrison here, you know. Me being OC.'

'Ah, you power-crazed madman, calm down and have some of this.'

He offered me a bottle of aftershave.

'Here only half an hour and reduced to drinking Brut? Tsk'

'The Brut, dear sir, is probably sweetening the sewers of Bucks. What's in here is a nice malt.'

Whatever cleaning method used had been extremely effective, the bottle contents being a nice malt, indeed, with no taste of aftershave at all.

'What's a "baffoon"?'

'Like a buffoon, only more so. Rabbits – I bet there's rabbits up here, this is just the sort of country they like. We could go hunting.'

The prospect of UNIT soldiers, armed with rifles and grenades and machine guns and bayonets, grimly tracking down fluffy animals, reduced Nick to a fit of laughter.

Dinner in the canteen got served at seventeen-hundred hours, being prepared by the standby team. Nick and I got roped in, and bumbled about trying not to get in everybody else's way, ending up wiser in the ways of the kitchen – learning where vegetables, raw ingredients, herbs, knives, ladles and utensils were stored.

'How do you get resupplied?' I asked one of the NCO's, a ferrety corporal who exhibited considerable skill with a knife, cleaver, spatula and frying pan.

'Helicopter, sir,' he answered, not pausing for a second as he diced a pepper. 'Not the one that takes men in and out every day. Once a fortnight, when they rotate a brick out, the inbound helicopter brings a load of supplies.' Nick's ears pricked up at this. More profit-divining.

Obvious, really. The garrison needed food, the radio needed spare parts, the generator needed diesel. Our arrival today on short notice was out of the run of things, personnel only, no supplies.

After dinner we went back to our hut.

'Did you bring any entertainment apart from booze?'

'My transistor, and a copy of Wisden.'

'Hmm. Time is going to drag.'

Time did drag, not speeding up when I surveyed the site from our windows. Over to the south of the UNIT garrison buildings were low clumps of gorse and sedge, grown up around and within the ruins of the old MOD buildings that had replaced the original Naval ones. Wire fences ran around several of the old building remnants, carrying metal warning signs, about subsidence or unsafe structures. The gorse flowers stood out a proud yellow, making a splash of sudden colour in the sombre scene. The breeze brought a distant soughing over the site; the sea, washing against the cove and beach.

'What's wrong with this picture,' I muttered to myself. Nick heard me.

'Second sign of madness,' he cautioned.

'No, I mean it. What's wrong here. Take a guess.'

Seeing that I was serious, he stopped to consider, then got up to look out of the windows.

'Nothing. Nothing that I can see, at least.'

'Correct. What can't you hear?'

'Sorry? _Can't_ hear?'

'No birds. When did you last go to the seaside and not hear and see gulls? No sparrows, no blackbirds, no birds or birdsong at all.'

'And that, my friends, is the first sign of madness. Tragic. Promising career cut short. Friends say they saw it coming.'

'Here's a sock, which will go in it, matey.'

'Ah, cease thy prating. Look, if we're on stag at two in the a.m., Lieutenant Munroe is getting some kip right now.'

Easily his best idea all day, and one I copied.

Getting up at ten to two in the morning wasn't fun, but thanks to the kip it wasn't too hard. I found myself on the four-man brick, with three unknown privates.

'Just lead the way,' I ordered. 'I'll follow your footsteps.' One of them gave me a bit of white sticky tape.

'Put this on the back of your collar, sir. Helps if anyone's following you.'

Camouflage cream on face, weapons check, fitments, proceed in a northerly direction.

What transpired would have filled two lines on a report sheet, yet I endured every second of those eight hours, most especially the ones during darkness. Nothing happened, nothing at all, but for the whole patrol an atmosphere of calamity just around the corner prevailed. The patrol maintained silence during darkness, apart from muffled curses and exclamations – mostly from me – at trips or knocks against undergrowth or tree branches. Once the sun came up a tangible feeling of relief came over us, and a bit of banter got exchanged.

'Okay, sir, we're going down the cliff path to the beach. Make sure you've got both hands free,' explained Mills, who led the patrol. Our path there crossed that of the random patrol, which included Nick and Private Ely, both looking wide-eyed and unhappy.

'Anything?' I asked, in a professional capacity.

'No, sir, apart from aging a year overnight,' replied Ely.

Our patrol went off to the cliff edge, which was traversed by a narrow path that slanted down, turned in a hairpin and went down to the beach. We lumbered down and crunched over the sands, keeping well clear of the rusty barbed wire that ran into the combers. Normally, at a guess, the patrol would have a breather, light a cigarette or two, empty a flask of coffee at this point. Having me along meant they wanted to look efficient and orderly.

'Okay, we'll take ten here, Private Mills. Anyone who wants can crash the ash.'

Grateful sighs from the patrol. Mills offered me a cigarette, which I refused with an explanation.

'My lips swell up like sausages if I smoke. Allergy.'

'Ah, bummer, sir.'

A few seconds of companionable silence passed.

'Does it always feel like it did last night?' I asked. 'Creepy with no reason to be.'

Mills nodded.

'Oh, aye, sir. Nothing ever happens, mind, but you always feel it's going to. Like being watched all the time.'

'Exactly! This place defines "brooding silence". I noticed there's no birds here.'

He nodded.

'Never a one. No rabbits, or any other animals either. The only things moving here are us.'

I nodded at the ocean.

'Barbed wire, exclusion zone. Ever seen anything unusual in the sea?'

Mills shuddered slightly.

'No, sir, never. They wouldn't go to all that trouble for nowt, though, would they? I can tell you nobody's ever stayed down on this beach at night, nor in daylight when the mist's in. That's right creepy.'

Fag break over, our patrol moved off, leaving the sand and walking onto a pebbled beach, moving past a cove where a single narrow archway, worn by the sea, cut through an arm of the cliffs that swept out and back in again. The shoreward part of this formation meant scrambling over big boulders, piled up in a highly unsafe manner.

Once over this natural obstruction, I saw another switchback path up the cliff, again narrow and steep. A barbed-wire knife-rest at the top of the cliff blocked our way until forced aside, the tin cans full of marbles strung to it making an unholy racket.

We strode over the patrol route inside the fence, distinctly lighter at heart in daylight, and I got close enough to Mills to ask another question.

'Do you get many people at the fence?'

He shook his head.

'Nah, sir. A few walkers in the spring or summer, that's about it. Look fierce, shout a bit and they disappear.'

A tour here really did seem to be a combination of fear and boredom in equal amounts, then.

Returning to the base after our time was up, Sergeant Whittaker came out of the radio hut and waved to me.

'Sir. Can you tell Lieutenant Munroe we have ten grenades on site, with another dozen brought in by the staff, twenty two in all. No rifle grenades.'

I gave him a brisk "very good", camouflaging my bafflement at Nick's request.

'Oh, just sorting inventory,' he explained when I asked, not being totally truthful.

Standby brought me into proximity with Whittaker in the canteen again, where the staff pretended to be ordered about by us officers. A little more accustomed to the environment, we made fewer mistakes today. The sergeant relaxed enough for me to feel encouraged to ask more questions about Maiden's Point.

'Private Mills told me there's rarely any trespassers up here, Sergeant.'

'Oh, true enough, sir. We get a few hikers come up the coast path from Port Mulgrave or Staithes, but not many because it's not in good shape. If they follow it closely it takes them well away from the fence, so only the idiots or the lost get close.'

Recalling the note to the Bestiary diagram, I remembered that the road to Maiden's Point no longer existed. The Sappers had dug it up, and destroyed the small culvert bridge over a burn that meant no vehicle without caterpillar tracks could get near the base.

'What about the locals?'

He laughed shortly.

'Not likely, sir! All scared stiff of the place, they are. The older ones seem to know why but won't tell anyone, and the young ones don't know anyway. Not even the boats from Scarborough come near the exclusion zone. They say it's bad luck to so much as see the cliffs at the Point from a ship, but you know what bloody superstitious oiks sailors are, sir, excusing my French.'

Actually I felt like forming my own superstitions about Maiden's Point.

'How was your first patrol, sir?' asked Whittaker, deceptively mildly, affecting a distant look of interest in the kitchen staff. He already knew what the answer would be.

' "Hair-raising" sums it up. I didn't see or hear anything strange but the whole time you expect – oh, I don't know, ghosts to rise up out of the ground.'

A sage nod from the sergeant.

'Not quite so picturesque, eh, sir? Well you needn't worry, nothing ever happens here - er, at least not now. I heard that the MoD police had a few suicides here when they looked after things. Mind you, they had to be here for a whole year at a time.'

Food for thought over the canteen food. Creepy, boring, silent, isolated. What a place to serve in!

In fact the "boring" part was untrue. Two events occurred in my tour that were utterly non-boring. The first was when I was on stand by, lurking in the Officers Quarters, cleaning the windows.

'Excuse me sir, trouble at sea,' came a voice from the doorway, preceded fractionally by a knock. It was Sergeant Whittaker, looking anxious.

'Trouble at t'mill?' I joked, then stopped feeling amused, seeing how genuinely alarmed the sergeant was. Adopt Proper Officer Bearing. 'What's the matter?'

'Sentry on the tower spotted a trawler headed into the exclusion zone.'

With that we were both off to the tower at a run, witnessed by a slightly startled Nick, who had been off on the shooting range, zeroing-in his SLR.

'Wait!' he exclaimed, following behind.

I beat Whittaker to the guard tower, then shot up the ladder and through the newly-widened trapdoor, just in time to hear the end of a quick conversation between the two squaddies on duty.

' – point calling Walmsley, he's too fat to fit through the – ah! Sir!'

'Glasses!' I snapped, grabbing and focussing them on a ship heading directly towards the MEZ, a trawler by the look of it. Deciding quickly, I picked up the phone from it's protective box on the inner scaffolding. Guessing that "DRO" meant Duty Radio Operator, I pressed that button.

'Hello, Duty Radio Operator here,'

'We have an unidentified merchant vessel heading towards the Marine Exclusion Zone. Notify Trap One and be quick about it.'

'Sir!' replied the DRO with considerable vim. This must be the most interesting event to have occurred here in years.

While the radio waves were buzzing with alarm calls, Sergeant Whittaker took a long look at the intruding vessel. Nick clambered up into our boudoir, to add to the spectators.

'That isn't a proper trawler,' muttered the sergeant. 'No nets out, for one thing.'

Nick pulled rank and borrowed the binoculars.

'Far too many aerials. Plus, the name is in Cyrillic. That, sergeant, is a Russian spy trawler.' He returned the glasses with a grin, looking pleased at creating a stir.

Ivan came on slowly, doggedly ignoring the warning bouys, then took up station about a mile off-shore. The ship sat there for no longer than fifteen minutes, doing whatever spying task it had been assigned, then the funnel chugged out extra gouts of diesel and it began to get underway again.

'The buggers are getting away,' complained someone.

'Don't bet on it,' exclaimed Sergeant Whittaker. He was looking through the binoculars to the north. Gradually what he had witnessed drew nearer. At first it was just a white feather with a dot at the head, which rapidly resolved into a wake with a speeding ship at the fore. We took turns to look at it through the binoculars, and to decide what it was.

'Looks like a cross between a speedboat and a jet aircraft,' commented Nick. 'Damn fast, too.'

I checked my watch. Less than twenty minutes since the DRO had notified Aylesbury. With a response that quick, I might have to revise my sneering disregard of the Royal Navy. Our Russian visitor must have had similar thoughts, as their funnel began to emit greater and greater volumes of smoke, the ship clearly trying to get away from the exclusion zone.

The strange vessel didn't enter the exclusion zone either. It turned in a graceful arc around the marker bouys and slowed down, lowering itself into the water, the forward planes it had been "skating" on disappearing under the waves.

'And now – what?' I asked aloud.

The Russian trawler carried on regardless, despite doubtless being hailed from the RN vessel. That the latter were not in a mood for messing about became clear when sudden muzzle flashes came from a cannon on the ship, and tracers slashed into the sea a few yards ahead of the fleeing trawler. Great narrow plumes of spray shot into the air, surprising me quite as much as the Russians. The forward gun turret on the RN ship turned slightly, putting the trespasser in a direct line of fire. Wisely, the Russians stopped their ship dead in the water.

'Ooh. The Navy has teeth,' quipped Nick. 'I wouldn't like to be the OC on that Russian ship.'

The two boats remained at relative rest for another two hours, by which time a Royal Navy frigate turned up. A helicopter went over from the frigate and winched up crew from the trawler one by one, taking them over to the frigate. One can only wonder at the methods used to "persuade" them to abandon ship. During the time they were stationary, we'd seen various items thrown overboard, and the funnel smoke had changed colour; must have been burning secret documents rather than risk them being acquired by horny-handed British matelots.

With startling suddenness, the small, fleet, RN craft took off, once again carefully skirting the exclusion zone. Our friend the helicopter returned, this time standing off a good half a mile from the trawler, and it launched a missile at the ship. A big bang echoed across the water as the middle of the ship flew apart, sending up a scattered cloud of debris. Joining in the fun, the frigate pumped a couple of shells into the wreck, which sank in less than thirty seconds.

All that remained of the spy trawler after that were bits of wood floating on the sea and an oily stain. Competely gone.

'Hmm. I guess the navy have Red Card rules like us,' commented Nick.

Nobody else commented. It would have been superfluous anyway.

'The legend of Maiden's Point as boring will no longer hold true in the canteen,' I wisecracked.

That constituted enough excitement for one afternoon. Endless rumours would spring from what occurred today, for years to come.

'Interesting, that, sir,' commented Sergeant Whittaker at the base of the ladder when we'd clambered down.

'Interesting? That's an understatement. You noticed that the RN never entered the exclusion zone themselves? Despite sitting on the ocean for several hours, that jet-boat of theirs never crossed into the exclusion zone, even when it would have been quicker to lift off the Russian crew.'

Quite why the navy exhibited such superhuman restraint wasn't obvious, then or later. None of us bothered over much. The navy was the navy, after all, and stubble-hoppers like us didn't have anything to do with it.

Yet a third dose of bad news came when the foursome of recent arrivals, me amongst them, were told we'd need to stay on another two weeks. Surprisingly, Nick didn't seem to mind this too much. For myself, I passed a message to the radio DRO with instructions to pass it on to Aylesbury and hence to Jan, my finacee, who probably thought I'd dumped her.

'Resupply soon!' gloated Nick, practically rubbing his hands in glee. He meant the fortnightly supply helicopter, due in the next day with a replacement rota of four men and half a ton of supplies.

When the time came for the chopper to come in, I made sure I stood at the helipad, alongside Nick, who was twitchy with anxiety.

'There it is! Beautiful!' he rhapsodised, having spotted the inbound helicopter.

Privately I considered that he needed spectacles, because the resupply chopper was a Westland Wessex. Of all the airborne vehicles that man has ever launched into the atmosphere, the Westland Wessex must be one of the ugliest; bulging, mis-shapen, front-heavy, graceless and aging, only it's designer would have considered it beautiful.

The incoming brick traded places with the outgoing, the supplies were dumped by the loadmaster and we set about carrying them into the stores hut.

"Grenade; No. 36 Pattern; 18 of" I read on a stout wooden crate.

'Sir, can you inform Lieutenant Munroe that we have over a hundred metres of fence pole in stock,' stated Sergeant Whittaker politely.

I filed this information away. Did Nick Munroe intend to wage war against the whole of Yorkshire? There was no chance to ask him about it then, as we were all busy storing material away and noting it on the inventory lists. Nor was there a chance later, since by then he was off on a routine patrol and I was on a random one. What with one thing and another, there was no chance to challenge the chancer for several days.

'Sir, we have twenty rolls of chicken wire,' reported Sergeant Whittaker to Lieutenant Munroe, right in front of me in the Officer's Hutch.

'Very good. Carry on with the netting. Ah, OC Walmsley. What can I help you with?'

I grabbed hold of his elbow, hopefully painfully.

'You can tell me what hare-brained scheme you're up to. It's my hide if the Brig finds out you've been selling hand-grenades to the locals, after all.'

He got a bit sniffy, which was an act, and not very persuasive.

'Oh, okay,' he grumbled. 'You said yourself that the main problem here is boredom, what the squaddies do on their off-duty time or the days off. So I decided to help them out, give them a project to contribute to, and incidentally raise the standard of nutrition in the mess.'

This fell entirely outside anything I'd expected.

'Show me.'

'Certainly, mon capitaine. Follow me. To the beach.'

Evidence of his handiwork stood proudly on the beach, butting up to the barbed-wire: a ten-foot tripod of fence-poles, bound together at the top with an interlaced wire binding, a foot of pole extending upwards beyond the nexus. Next to it on the beach lay a thirty foot length of pole, surmounted by a huge net framed in wood, tailed with a long rope tied at the other end. The net itself had been made by layering chickenwire, reducing the size of the mesh. Next to the tripod sat an ammunition box.

A couple of squaddies, on their off-day, stood ready at the bizarre device.

'Advance to contact!' chortled Nick. The soldiers dragged the pole and net across the sands, wallowed it into the air and dropped it at the crux of the tripod, net side towards the ocean. Then they gradually pushed forward, letting go of their pole.

'Aha!' I said, seeing reason. The landing net – for that was what it could only be – now lay in the ocean beyond the barbed wire. If anything landed in it, the men at the other end of the pole would hoist it out of the water with their rope, then swing it over the wire and onto dry land.

Trust Nick, he didn't allow chance to influence what wandered into the net. No; in that ammunition box were the extra hand-grenades he'd ordered.

'Fishing with HE,' he advised me, pulling the pin on a grenade, then throwing it as far as he could. With a muffled crump the grenade went off, and in a minute dead or stunned fish drifted into the shallows, where the giant landing-net scooped them up.

'Fish and chips tonight!' exclaimed one of the squaddies, clearly happy at the prospect. Yes, well, boosting morale and all that. OC Walmsley headed back to barracks, shaking his head at the ingenuity of modern military man.

Such ingenuity might have been the death of us. For the time being it supplied plaice, flounder, bream and eels. Eel sounds nasty in the abstract, but in the flesh it tasted quite like chicken, a fact the chefs in the canteen took advantage of. Nick's foresight included requesting a bag of lemons, which made the plaice quite acceptable. All in all the whole Maiden's Point establishment felt the better for Mister Munroe's Giant Fish Scoop, both in terms of chucking hand grenades at defenceless fish and the change in diet it made.

The second interesting thing to happen at Maiden's Point during my tour involved the beach patrol. It was of interest to me since I happened to be part of that particular beach patrol, on the last run before darkness fell, when the beach became out of bounds. Having been on-site for over two weeks, I had gotten more used to the unpleasant feeling of having hidden eyes staring at my defenceless back all the time. "More used to" did not equal "Not bothered by". Tail end charlie in our brick, and in every other, acquired the habit of suddenly turning to catch anyone silently sneaking up on the patrol.

I have mentioned before that part of the patrol route took us over a sweeping arc of chalk rubble, none of which was safe footing. Recent rains had dislodged rocks and gravel, making footing even less safe than usual.

Inevitably, one man got stuck. Corporal Dene put his weight on a rock, which rolled from beneath him, precipitating a small rockslide that made a nasty grating rumble for all of three seconds. The corporal's stout ammunition boot prevented serious injury, but his right foot was stuck firmly under three large boulders, too large for us to shift.

Our language for half a minute would have impressed jaded dockers. Finally I took charge, telling the two other men to double back to the base, get torches and crowbars and half a dozen of the standby team.

'Don't leave me, sir!' pleaded Dene, pathetically.

'Oh grow up you girl,' I snapped back. 'I'm staying with you. We won't be here long.'

A pious hope. It would take an hour to get the crowbars and return, especially since the sun was nearly down and the men returning would be moving in the dark, over unsafe terrain.

The feeling of being under observation came back ten-fold once the shades of night fell, and they fell quickly. Dene snivelled a bit, complaining about his foot, so I fed him a chocolate bar. If he felt glad of the company, so too did I, listening to the waves slap and rush in the still night air. My SLR never left my side, and Dene kept his within reach. A chilly breeze coming off the sea kept our hair on end. Either that or we were scared and wouldn't admit it.

Thirty minutes later the gentle rhythm of the waves changed slightly, out towards our front, an interruption only noticeable because I'd been listening so long.

'D'you think we're the first to be on here after dark, sir,' asked Dene.

'"Out", not "on", Dene. No I don't, actually. I reckon the garrison will have run patrols down here when they took over from the MoD police, until they found it was too dangerous.'

That was a complete guess.

'Can you hear that?' I asked. 'The sea must be getting up.'

Dene stared past me, out at the barbed wire, eyes wide. He didn't speak, so I slowly turned round, expecting to see some ghastly monster standing behind me, the hair on my neck bristling with fright.

Well, there was no ghastly monster standing behind me. No, this one stood in the barbed wire rolls, having stood up out of the water. Waves broke around it, creating the subtle difference in sound I'd noticed. It carefully strode over the wire, snagging on the barbs yet not bothering about them overmuch. At first it was only visible as a darker shadow against the sea, lurching closer in a clumsy fashion. What Dene and I could see of the shadow didn't endear it to us; it looked like a human version of the Westland Wessex. When the shambling figure got closer I liked it still less. Close-up you couldn't pretend it was a diver in silly costume trying to get to dry land. No. Close up it looked like what it was; a monster.

To create an approximation, imagine a human swollen and distorted by disease, their flesh drained of colour into a grey pallor, great abscesses marching across their body, fingernails lengthened into talons. Swathe the whole in rotting clothes, reeking of salt and chlorine, and you have what wandered up to Dene and I that spring evening.

Dene brought his SLR up smartish and loosed off a shot. The sound made me jump as high as the monster facing us.

'CEASE FIRE!' I yelled, half-turning to face the prone corporal. My mind went speeding on whilst I watched the creature.

Point one: the thing had it's hands raised. Non-hostile gesture.

Point two: whatever this creature was, it didn't feature in the Bestiary

Point three: no Red Card rules applied.

Point four: it was coming at us from a direction where we could see it, instead of sneaking up on us from behind.

I leant closer to Corporal Dene.

'I'm going to see what it wants. Don't shoot unless I order it, okay!'

Swaggering up to the beginning of the barbed wire, SLR cocked off one hip, looking Mr Monster squarely in the eye, I wondered just what to do. That shot of Dene's hit the beast square in the chest, without effect. Either it had incredibly good armour or bullets didn't worry it. Okay, if bullets wouldn't do the trick, perhaps diplomacy would.

My monster figured that out before me. Bowing low, an effect spoilt only slightly by the rusty barbed wire all around us, the creature extended both hands towards me.

Empty. Empty hands. A peace gesture?

Slinging my rife, I reproduced the gesture. Mr Monster took that as a positive step, standing back and nodding his huge, mis-shapen head in satisfaction. Next he pulled a small, round object from a pocket in his robes, throwing it to me.

Metal, round, black and weighty. The base plug from a hand-grenade. Okay, since the amphibious thing opposite didn't seem able to speak, perhaps sign language would do.

'Part of a hand-grenade,' I said, loudly and clearly, tugging at the one looped onto my uniform. The monster waved its hands in a clearly negative gesture, turned back and pointed at the sea and made the gesture again.

'What is it after?' I asked Dene. Hearing no reply I darted a quick glance in his direction; passed-out. Later he claimed the pain in his foot rendered him unconscious, but the other NCO's teased him about fainting with fright.

Once more the clumsy creature pantomimed it's gesture, pointing at the live grenade dangling on my chest and shaking its head, turning and waving at the waves.

Finally, I got, I got it.

'You want us to stop throwing grenades in the sea!'

Mister Monster bobbed his head in agreement. Fair do, I suppose. If you lived in the ocean you didn't want an endless rain of bombs coming down on your head.

'Very well. As Officer Commanding, I will forbid any more grenades to be used in the sea. Which is where you live?'

Another bobbing nod, after which the creature started to move back over the wire. In slightly deeper water, it stooped and picked up a bulky, regularly-shaped object, then brought it back and placed it at my feet. Giving a bow of farewell, the great shambling thing retreated into the waters of the cove.

'Sorry about shooting you,' I apologised, feeling that an apology was merited. The creature gave me a wave and carried on.

Arriving slightly too late, half a dozen men came down the cliff path with torches, crowbars, rope, splints and a collapsible stretcher. They found me staring at the sea, shaking my head in bewilderment, clutching a large piece of Russian electronic equipment.

Sergeant Whittaker got the rocks shifted from Corporal Dene in five minutes flat, we hoisted him onto the stretcher and all of us were off over the beach at high speed.

'What did you see?' muttered the sergeant, hanging back at the rear of the party with me.

'A great fishy man-monster that shrugs off bullets. Polite feller, though.'

In accordance with my orders, the patented Munroe Giant Fish Scoop suffered dismantling next morning, and the spare grenades were impounded and boxed up again.

Of course the whole garrison were agog and a-gabbling next day; something interesting had happened at Maiden's Point! Nobody quite knew what, except that it involved the OC, who wasn't giving anything away, certainly not that gadget "washed up on the beach".

When the next resupply helicopter came in, with my group of four due to fly out on it, the cargo included bags of seed potatoes, fertilizer bags, spades, shovels, forks, compost, tomato seedlings, runner beans, sweet corn and onions.

'That'll keep your men busy and out of mischief!' I told the incoming officer when he jumped out of the Wessex. The idea was to plant the crops and harvest them, creating an allotment on the site, vary the men's diet. Walmsley's substitute for fishing with grenades.

We soared high over the beach on the return leg, seeing the sea, not seeing anyone emerging from it. Picture postcard perfect, at least from on high. You could just see the big flat rock on the foreshore, where the beach patrols found fresh fish laid out every morning, covered with weed to prevent them drying out, ever since my meeting with the big sea-monster. Tit for tat, I suppose.

The Brig wanted to see me the instant I put feet on solid ground at Aylesbury. I could tell this because his batman came out to tell me so.

'Naughty boy,' whispered Nick. The batman took my kit, apart from one item, and I doubled off to the Brig's office.

'Come in!' he snapped when the adjutant knocked, and I was ushered in.

The Brig was there – salute, Walmsley – and the Doctor lounged in a chair against the wall. Two characters in navy uniform stood up to greet me.

'Lieutenant Walmsley, this is Captain Turner and Chief Petty Officer Hanrahan, sent down from the Admiralty,' explained the Brig. Another salute from me. The Captain gave me a bland smile. CPO Hanrahan's face wasn't made for smiling, being adorned with an immense black beard.

'They're here to have a look at that box of tricks you found,' explained Lethbridge-Stewart.

'Oh – certainly, sir. Here you go.' CPO Hanrahan took the device carefully, looking it over. 'We let it dry in the air. Didn't think the internals would enjoy being heated up.'

'Very good, sir,' pronounced the CPO. 'Surprisingly intact.'

'Washed ashore, eh' commented the Captain, casting a beady eye upon me. 'Unusual. These things are always chucked overboard in a weighted bag. Bit heavy for, hmm - washing ashore.'

I shrugged.

'It came ashore literally at my feet.'

Not a word of a lie.

'Looks like a Mod Seventeen, sir,' gloated Hanrahan. 'Even the Yanks haven't got beyond the Mod Fourteen.'

'Incidentally, Captain Turner,' I began, going on the attack. 'What was that peculiar skiing boat that intercepted the trawler? It went like stink.'

'A hydrofoil, Lieutenant,' interrupted the Doctor. 'Built to ski, as you put it, upon the waves.'

The Captain directed a black look at the lounging Doctor.

'Yes. A hydrofoil. Undergoing sea trials at Hartlepool, luckily for us.'

Another sally from me.

'We're a bit isolated at the Point, you know, so I may have missed the Russians protesting at one of their fishing vessels being sunk. It didn't get a mention on the radio.'

The Captain didn't reply, merely grinning bleakly.

'They wouldn't dare,' muttered Hanrahan, cradling the complicated Mod Seventeen carefully. 'Not after – hum.'

'Time for us to be going, I think. Brigadier,' said the Captain, saluting and leaving. Hanrhan delayed a second.

'You wouldn't believe how glad we are about this,' he whispered in passing, closing the door behind him as he indicated the device.

'And now, Lieutenant, perhaps you'd care to tell me the whole story!' barked the Brigadier, irked at the concealment of facts, perhaps. The Doctor pursed his lips, placed his forefingers together and regarded me with amusement.

I explained, leaving Nick Munroe's responsibility out of things. As OC it fell to me to square up to things.

Predictably, the Doctor only got excited when hearing about the amphibious horror sloshing ashore at dead of night.

'How interesting! Really, this is proof of a sustained eddy in the time vortex, given what you witnessed.'

'Oh. What did I witness, Doctor?'

'A haemovore. Definitely the product of asynchronous interchange. No wonder the Navy keeps clear. Most interesting, most interesting,' and he lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

'So you chose not to shoot it?' asked the Brig. I gave my reasons.

'Plus, sir, talking didn't risk anything. I suppose I could have tried a rugby tackle if it got nasty.'

'Tut tut!' interrupted the Doctor. 'You know, Lieutenant, I was beginning to think rather highly of you. Not shooting first is hardly typical of the military mind, you see. However, if you had tried physical violence, I'm afraid the haemovore would doubtless have killed you. They are tremendously strong.'

I gave voice to further suspicions.

'The Navy know a lot more about this than they let on. That wire on the beach isn't to keep those things off the land, it's to keep people out of the sea. The hydrofoil took care never to enter the Marine Exclusion Zone, whilst the Russians were lifted off their trawler by helicopter, not by boat. Nobody sailed into the zone except the Russians, who got sunk for their pains. It all looks like an arrangement to me –'

'"Leave us alone and we'll leave you alone",' commented the Doctor. 'A principle known as _laissez-faire_, and worth practicing, eh, Brigadier?'

Lethbridge-Stewart frowned.

'UNIT is founded on not leaving things alone, as you very well know, Doctor! Lieutenant, I can't comment on what you said, for the simple fact that I don't know what goes on under the water at Maiden's Point, thatnks to the Senior Service's practice of keeping its cards very close to its chest. The facts do seem to suggest what you point out is true. An accomodation exists between this kind of creature and humans.'

'An armistice,' suggested the Doctor. He seemed to enjoy baiting the Brigadier. 'Look, Lethbridge-Stewart, you called me in to verify this officer's story. Well, I've done so. He is telling the truth. Now, can we both leave?'

We were chased on our way by a growl.

'Someone got out of bed on the wrong side,' I muttered.

'My dear chap, it's nothing personal,' explained the Doctor. 'Geneva just sent in details of his budget for next year.'

'Ah. Cutbacks, then.'

The Doctor shrugged.

'One supposes. Money is something I have absolutely no use for, myself.'

I stared at him, hard.

'You know, Doctor, I can believe that without hesitation. Well, I am now going to make out endless reports about Maiden's Point, on a manual typewriter because UNIT can't afford enough electric ones or secretaries for the manual ones. Then I shall adjourn to the canteen. What's on the menu?'

'Cod and chips,' replied the Doctor, deadpan.


	7. UNIT UK 7: Testing to Destruction

**Part Seven: Testing to Destruction**

Nick and I were still not assigned to a regular formation within UNIT UK. For an undetermined period we'd be floating, sent off to perform stand-in or relief when needed, whilst remaining based at Aylesbury. This had led to our despatch to Maiden's Point at short notice, which had been both an interesting and unpleasant experience, but it also meant we carried out routine and boring staff duties at the HQ.

Using a notebook to keep track, I tried to learn more about the various life-forms detailed in the Bestiary, and found quite the best person to ask was the Doctor. He might look like a sartorial scientist of dubious sanity, and that's pretty much how I thought of him, yet his mind was quick and exceedingly sharp. Any question about Daleks or the Nestenes got an in-depth reply, with far more details than were ever included in the Bestiary or the weekly Sitreps from Geneva or locally. How did he know? "Personal experience" he would reply, tapping the side of his nose. One of his more bizarre tendencies concerned historical figures like Horatio Nelson, Marco Polo or HG Wells, whom he talked about in the present tense. It was hard to make out whether he was an insane genius or genuinely insane.

Lieutenant Munroe, far from dealing with theory, dealt with money if he could and with practical items if he could not. I suspected that he and QMS Campbell were sending in bottles of whisky to Maiden's Point, which the garrison there were happy to pay lots for. More usefully, he rapidly lost interest in the staff duties we got assigned to.

'This paper-pushing isn't what I joined up for. I'm not simply a clerk in uniform. I want to blow things up!' he complained in the mess. Captain Beresford shook his head sympathetically.

'Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Your time will come, Nick.'

It certainly did, sooner than anyone expected.

Several weeks after his outburst in the mess, Guard Room put through a call from Portsmouth, asking for "Mister Munroe". Seconds after the phone call Nick came tearing into the vehicle park, where I was Transport Officer for that week's rota, eying our one healthy Bedford and the two U/S ones.

'Yes, Lieutenant Munroe? Can the Battalion Transport Officer help you?' I asked, cool and detached.

'Yes, you stuffed shirt! I need a three-tonner soonest, for a long-range recce.'

'How _long_ is the long part of long-range?' I asked, suspiciously.

'Portsmouth. Come on, time is wasting!'

'And what does this have to do with your duty rota as Inspection Officer?' I asked, still suspicious.

'I've got wind of equipment going spare that the Brig might like, except he can't officially acknowledge it exists, let alone put in a tender for it. Satisfied?'

'No. You can have the truck. Don't get friendly, I haven't finished. You can have the truck, but without me signing it out officially.'

Cue major scowls from Nick, but since I technically outrank him, no worries. He took the point, and also the truck, with driver, so for my sake I hoped he had a decent excuse. My final warning was that, if this was merely one of his make-Munroe-rich schemes, he'd never beget children.

Next job, just in case, had to be sorting out more Battalion Transport.

'Hello, Guard Room? Get hold of the fitters for me, will you? Couple of rush jobs.'

Of course, inevitably, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart turned up in the late afternoon, accompanied by his escort, Sergeant Benton. Equally inevitably, he made a bee-line for the vehicle park and, of course, wanted transport.

'Lieutenant Walmsley, we need transport to shift the Doctor's box of tricks.'

Which was? I asked myself. What did our resident boffin-stroke-wierdo have that needed a large truck to carry it? The Brig did a double-take and looked at me with a touch of annoyance.

'Where's the working truck?'

'Lieutenant Munroe borrowed it, sir. He's gone to get a shipment of supplies. I can let you have either of these two, if you need transport straight away.'

'I do, Lieutenant, I do. Sarn't Benton, get this one round to the other side of the east wing, under the crane.'

Sergeant Benton scrawled his mark on my clipboard, got in the cab and drove the truck out of the courtyard. Silently my thanks went up to the fitters who'd put both remaining Bedfords into working order, finishing only quarter of an hour before the Brig arrived, spurred on by a two-hundred cigarette bribe.

The Brig made to leave, then turned back and asked the question I least wanted to hear.

'Supplies? I didn't think we had anything on order. Where has he gone?'

'Portsmouth, sir.'

'Portsmouth! What on earth –'

With a loud crunching of gravel, the missing Bedford made it's way under the archway and into the courtyard, towing a large, mysterious object.

'You can ask him yourself, sir,' I replied, a happy man.

'Munroe! Explain yourself!' snapped the Brigadier. Our Nick remained unfased, climbing down from the cab with a smug expression to salute smartly when on the ground.

'Sir!' he replied, brightly. 'It's common knowledge that UNIT UK is persistently under-manned, by several hundred personnel. I hoped we might make up the shortfall with firepower in lieu of manpower.'

Looking at the towed object more closely, it resolved itself as a Bofors anti-aircraft gun, outriggers and stabilisers folded up against the breech for compact travelling. The rear of the Bedford was stacked with boxes, crates and drums.

Nick waved an imperious arm at the truck bed.

'A contact of mine said the Navy were getting rid of a lot of anti-aircraft stuff, guns for the most part. Being replaced by missiles, you see. So I borrowed the truck to get hold of it down at Portsmouth.'

Despite himself, the Brig looked impressed and amused, his moustache twitching.

'I don't need to know the details, Lieutenant. Carry on!' he ordered and strode off.

'What have you got?' I asked, honestly curious.

'Well, those long crates there are L1A1s's, tuned-up by the Navy artificers to fire at about nine hundred rpm.'

"L1A1" translated into "Browning Heavy Machine Gun" in my mind.

'And those wider boxes are twin Browning 7.62's. The really long crate is a twenty millimetre Oerlikon cannon – don't look too impressed, there wasn't any ammo for it. What d'you think?'

Truth be told, my first impression was that Nick had gone stealing at an armoury.

'How much ammo do you have for them?'

'Let's see – about fifteen thousand rounds of all sorts. And one hundred and forty shells for the Bofors.'

Even the stoic Sergeant Benton seemed impressed when he came to inspect the unloaded weaponry in the armoury, giving a whistle of appreciation. I picked up one of the L1A1's, a monster of a machine gun five feet long, just to see if I could.

'Think you could fire it?' joked Nick.

'I wouldn't, sir,' advised Benton. 'That's a big bundook. The recoil would knock it out of your hands with the first shot.'

'Just testing.' I laid the gun by it's tripod mount. Next job for me was to allocate time for the fitters to put pintle mounts on our Landrovers and trucks, so I went back to my room to sort out the rota. Not dashing stuff, exactly, yet it needed to be done to help Protect the Planet.

The next week brought another vehicle onto strength. A cut-down truck, driven by Nick, and towing a length of drainpipe on wheels, intruded on my small domain of Battalion Transport.

'What -' I asked, pointing with my pen for emphasis, ' - is that!'

'Don't get shirty, Battalion Transport Officer. This is an air-dropped modified Bedford, lightened specially for the Paras. No upper cab, as you can see.'

'And the drainpipe?'

He got down and led me round to the towed article. Actually it wasn't a drainpipe, it was a Wombat recoilless rifle. The truck bed lay deep in boxes of the huge shells for the Wombat.

'Now, before you ask, Battalion Motor Man, yes this is legal. The Paras were getting rid of the truck and the gun came with it.'

There was no reply from me.

'Here's the vehicle log, service details, requisition order – you need to sign that – maintenance schedule and repair history,' continued Nick, handing over the paperwork. 'And I got two hundred cannon shells for our Oerlikon.'

With that, Nick's reputation as a fixer-and-finder was established firmly in everyone's mind. I remained the chap who'd chatted with a fish-monster.

Like all boys with toys, Nick and I wanted to test-fire our new hardware. The Brig approved of this, maybe since it got two unassigned officers out of his hair for a day or two, although he might have had second thoughts if we'd told him exactly what we were going to test the weapons on. I drove one Landrover, Nick drove another and our cut-down truck was brought along by Corporal Horrigan, with Private Ely in attendance. Thus we arrived at Swafham Prior, booked in on the authority of the Brig, armed to the teeth and beyond. With ear-protectors.

'Civvie vehicles,' pointed out Nick in the car park.

This did not sit well with me. Part of the reason for coming all the way out here was to cavort beyond the view of civilians, applying deadly force with no onlookers.

'We'll deal with them if they get nosey. I doubt it, given the noise we'll be making.' How wrong I was.

The test firing range was behind the huge storage hanger, and consisted of a long, wide lane between sheets of corrugated iron backed with sandbags, which ended in an earth wall, backed with more sandbags. Vertical white stripes were painted on the iron walls every ten yards, allowing firers to judge their distance from targets. Nick went into the hangar and dug the Range Safety Officer out of his cosy den, then waved the Brig's permissory note under his nose.

His eyes widened when he saw the vehicles and the weapons brought along.

'Now, we'll need one each of the following,' declared Nick, producing the list I'd typed out at Aylesbury.

'You can have them. I'm not wheeling any of them out, you can do that yourselves.'

The Autons were first. Nice and light, so I brought out two, then stuck them at fifty and one hundred yards down the range. The RSO put up the firing flag, Corporal Horrigan drove up the Landrover with the fifty-calibre, made sure the handbrake was on and vehicle left in first gear once the engine was off.

'Okay, Corporal. Give that plastic rascal a quick burst.'

Horrigan adjusted his ear-protectors, cocked the gun, squinted down the sights and loosed off a burst of ten rounds. A couple of the tracers in the burst raced to the first Auton, which blew apart in a cloud of plastic. I signalled the RSO, who lowered the flag, and went out to examine the corpse.

"Bits of corpse" would be more accurate. The big armour-piercing rounds had shattered the plastic body into dozens of large pieces and hundreds of smaller ones, leaving nothing bigger than a fist-sized chunk of whitish plastic.

'Overkill,' I decided. 'Next target, only five rounds, if you can.'

The Auton still broke apart into uncountable bits. By taking rounds out of the belt that fed the machine gun, we managed to eventually fire bursts of only two or three rounds. At ranges over two hundred yards, it took three bullets from the Browning to disintegrate an individual Auton.

'Scribe diligently, oh senior officer,' mocked Nick. I frowned at him. What did he mean, the buffoon? Regardless, I made notes on my clipboard.

'Okay, Private Ely, try the Oerlikon.'

The Oerlikon, a twenty-millimetre anti-aircraft cannon, made a percussive crack when it fired, and made the noisy Browning seem sedate and quiet. _BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG _ went Ely, before stopping and swearing.

'What's the problem?' I asked.

'It's the Lannie, sir. The suspension's not built to take the recoil from summat like this. It threw me off, all the rocking.'

'Single shots, then.'

BANG. The replacement Auton out at the hundred-yard marker flew apart. When I went out to look, the head was intact, and so were the feet, but nothing else.

'Evil alien invader, nil. Human beings, one,' I muttered. Walking back to the parked vehicles meant I could see behind them, and realised why Nick had been so smugly amused. Several civilians from the hangar had come out to see who was making all the noise, and why. One of the onlookers was Liz Shaw, and her duenna Mme Valdupont. Giving them a controlled, ambiguous wave, I motioned to Ely.

'About what we expected. We're going to try the Daleks next. Take the Lannie into the hangar and pick up that empty chassis unit. Lieutenant Munroe, if you can function with that smirk, please accompany him.'

The last sentence got spoken extra-loudly for the benefit of our audience.

'What on earth are you up to, Lieutenant?' asked Ms Shaw. 'We can't hear ourselves think in there for the racket you're making.'

Mme. Valdupont muttered in French, her expression not kind or forgiving at all.

'Practical testing, Miss Shaw. Determining what effect differing calibre rounds have on our enemy at different ranges. For your information, we intend to use a recoilless rifle, shortly.'

Blank looks from Liz, Mme Valdupont and half a dozen other male scientists come to goggle at us.

'A lightweight artillery weapon that makes a considerable amount of noise. _Un Grand Puissance Filiuex_!' I added in French for Mme Valdupont, who coloured and frowned.

'Think she gets out of bed on the wrong side whichever it is, sir,' commented Corporal Horrigan, deadpan.

'Corporal! That is a wicked and malicious thing to say. Even if it does appear to be true,' I replied.

Nick brought the empty Dalek chassis, which took two of us to unload and trundle down the range.

'Oh, dahling, where has our baby gone!' commented Nick, in a mock-falsetto. 'Our pram is empty.'

'Behave with the dignity becoming a British officer, you hysterical old woman,' I growled. 'We are being watched. By single women.'

The next five minutes were amusing for the onlookers. We fired the fifty-calibre and the Oerlikon at that wretched chassis, from which the rounds ricocheted to the four points of the compass, in a wild firework display of tracers. The chassis trundled about the target range under the impact of the rounds, hunted by the incoming rounds, followed by appreciative hoots of laughter and jeers from our audience.

'Bring on the big gun!' I shouted. Horrigan drove up the Bedford. I waved to the RSO.

'Wombat!' I warned. We checked the back-blast area, shooed a scientist away, and Horrigan let loose with the recoiless rifle. A shattering blast shook the air, a huge cloud of gas and smoke vented from the gun's rear and the shell flew downrange, hitting the Dalek squarely.

It took ten minutes to dig the chassis from the earth bank, and it still remained unpunctured, although a few of the electronic sensor pods on the exterior had been shattered loose.

'Evil alien invader, one point. Human beings – oh, call it a draw,' I commented. 'Those things couldn't dig each other out of the ground.'

'Bravo!' cheered Liz Shaw, clapping. 'Our heroes.'

'Formidable,' commented Mme Valdupont, icily. 'Mon braves. Vraiment .'

The Cybermen were less difficult than the Daleks. Still, it took a couple of fifty-calibre rounds to put one of them down. The Oerlikon made a terrible mess of the last target Cyberman, blowing a large exit hole in the creature's back, causing it to leak unspeakably vile black goo. The remnants of the creature's organic component, I supposed.

One of the more unexpected targets was a Yeti – actually a robot covered with fur that imitated a Yeti. Only three surviving models were kept at Swafham, meaning we could only shoot bits off one of them. The thing had to be towed out of the hangar on a cable, since it weighed so much and lacked any means of convenient transport, which caused it to bounce across the old runway like a yo-yo, once more to the amusement of all assembled. Nick and Horrigan rolled it across the range, dragging and scraping the fur exterior. By the time the RSO put up the flag, our unfortunate Yeti looked moth-eaten and sorry for itself.

Such a large target was easy to hit, but more difficult to damage, at first. One of the Browning's first tracer rounds ignited the fur, which caught and burnt completely with surprising speed. The smell wafted to us made people retch.

A bald, red-hot robot stood facing us when the smoke died down. The fifty-calibre knocked holes in it, the Oerlikon shot holes completely through it, scattering corroded internal machinery across the range.

The final test, for comparison, involved a NATO-standard Bren. Private Ely emptied the magazine at an Auton, all thirty rounds, at fifty yards. I made notes on my clipboard. The audience, now the entertainment was over, disappeared back into the hangar.

Out of politeness and wanting to be able to return to Swafham, we collected buckets, shovels and empty sandbags and went at the varying rubbish out on the firing range. The stink from the damaged Cyberman chased us away, until Horrigan threw a bucket of sand over the slimy black puddle it lay in. The Auton's were no bother, merely being swept up into bags. The assembled pile of sandbags were stocked in the Landrover, which was driven back to the hangar, then dumped off in a dark corner away from scrutiny. All four of us sat down to dine off packed lunches in the bench-and-table area of the hangar that passed as a canteen.

'Not a bad day's work,' preened Nick. 'We got pretty useful data from that.'

'It seemed to us that you were playing with large, dangerous and expensive toys,' commented a familiar voice. Liz Shaw, with the glum Mme Valdupont and four male scientists, who either wore tweed or denim. They, too, were about to eat.

Manners propelled me to my feet.

'Of course, Miss Shaw. You missed out "complex". These weapons need to be tested. I would be highly embarrassed, not to mention dead, if they were needed in a scrap and didn't work.'

Giving a small bow, I sat down.

'Is it permissible to ask what you scientists are working on?' Nick asked, hoping to change the subject.

'Non,' declared Mme Valdupont flatly, without even looking up.

'Sorry,' apologised one of the beared chaps in tweed. 'House rules.'

' 's'okay,' I mumbled around a doorstop sandwich. 'We've got rules like that ourselves. My guess, Nick, is that they're analysing Dalek armour with a view to replicating it for use in human AFV's, giving a comparatively lightweight protection for stuff like the Chieftan.'

A guess, but not a bad one. Mme Valdupont looked at me sharply, Liz Shaw looked impressed and the man who'd spoken looked surprised.

'But that's a only a guess,' I continued. More military staff came to eat at the tables and the conversation ended.

'Okay, ten minutes for fag break, then back to HQ,' I ordered once the plates were clear. Naturally this left me indoors, coincidentally with the scientists.

'Quite a shrewd guess, Lieutenant Walmsley,' commented Liz. 'Even if I can't say whether it's correct or not.'

'Really. Well, a person being large doesn't necessarily imply that they're dim, you know,' I replied, driven by one of the bugbears of my youth and how people saw me. 'Ah, Mme Valdupont. I apologise.'

Taken by surprise, the Frenchwoman wrinkled her nose at me.

'Eh – hmm, what do you mean?'

'For Agincourt.'

Liz elbowed me in the ribs for that.

'Ow! Okay, okay. For Crecy, too.'

Glowering looks from Mme Valdupont, who looked less than amused.

'You are not funny, m'sieur.'

'Perhaps not, but we're on the same side. Human. I may be the same size as a Cyberman but you don't need to treat me like one, you know.'

Nick waved at me from the hangar door.

'Excuse me, duty calls, as does the HQ at Aylesbury!' I apologised (genuinely this time) and departed with a swift salute. Liz shook her head in exasperation and Mme Valdupont stared at her shoes.

'Where have you arranged to meet?' asked Nick, to the poorly-hidden amusement of Horrigan and Ely.

I favoured him with a short phrase of colourful description.

'No date? Oh, I am disappointed. All that body language misread.'

'Nick – oh never mind. Let's get moving again.'

Nowadays, whenever I hear about Chobham armour, I always wonder if the pundits know where it came from and who invented it. I hope Liz Shaw gets royalties.


	8. Chapter 8

**Part Eight: One of Britain's Stately Ruins**

'Lieutenant Walmsley?' asked the Brig down the telephone.

'Sir,' I replied, politely.

'What do you have on at the moment?'

Slight pause whilst I wondered what to tell and what to avoid, transport-wise.

'Still trying to account for the shortfall in diesel, sir, forty gallons-worth. One of the Bedfords is getting a new clutch put in this morning, and there's a lot of paperwork to be done for the FV402.'

'Ah, yes, that sardine can on tracks,' commented the Brig. My feelings were hurt – it had taken weeks of phone calls and typed requests to persuade a reluctant Regular Army to lease UNIT one of their armoured personnel carriers. 'Nothing urgent, then. Good. I want you to drive out to Auderley House with Corporal Dene and carry out the monthly check.'

'Er – when, sir?' I asked, thinking about missing lunch.

'Straight away, Lieutenant! Straight away!'

Corporal Dene, returned to Aylesbury from a tour at Maiden's Point, sat waiting at the wheel of a Landrover outside the HQ.

'Morning, sir,' he said. 'I've got the test kit here.'

'You've done this before?'

'Couple of times. Dead easy, nothing to bother about,' he consoled me, driving off.

Auderley House; my recall of the name was a little hazy. The Daleks had attacked it a few years back, and had been destroyed when the whole place blew up. That was what I knew _now_; back then the six o'clock news speculated that our British offshoot of the Bader-Meinhof gang had carried out the attack, perishing in the attempt.

'I was there, you know, when the Garlicks attacked, sir,' explained Dene.

'Oh?' I remarked, looking at him. 'I believe not many from the security detail survived.'

'Too bloody true, sir, if you'll pardon my French. Sergeant Benton, who will live to be hung, and half a dozen of us, out of thirty. Right ruddy shambles – excuse me, sir.'

For the rest of the brief journey the corporal remained quiet, a silence I didn't feel like breaking.

'Here we are, sir,' he said as we swung off a minor country road, stopping at the chained, padlocked gates of Auderley House. Sharp, barbed railings rose six feet high atop a low stone wall which flanked the massive gateway pillars and ran round the perimeter of the gardens.

I got the key and unlocked the gates, locking them again once Dene drove through. Before climbing back in I took a long look at the house itself.

The roof was long gone, and no windows remained. The frontage was dirty and weeds sprouted from gutters and cracks in the walls.

'Seen better days.' Dene merely grunted in reply. We drove down a rough track, gone to seed with weeds and shrubbery encroaching on it, that led past the house front, then into a copse, then across open grassland to stop on a canal towpath. The sunken remains of a narrow boat sat at the water's edge, lending an air of abandonment to the scene. The canal ran under a railway bridge, on into the middle distance, it's weedy green water untroubled by boats. No trains passed on the bridge whilst we were there so the line must also be disused.

'That's where we go to, sir,' said Dene, pointing to the bridge supports where the towpath narrowed to go under the bridge. He carried a satchel and clipboard with him, leading the way.

What I'd initially taken to be a part of the bridge supports turned out to be a huge plug of concrete, roughly set, which filled a circular section of the earth bank under the bridge approach. Three large pipes, covered with plastic caps, protruded six inches from the concrete at waist level, and a small hinged metal plate had been positioned at the twelve o'clock position on the facing.

'This is where the Garlicks came into our timezone, sir,' said Dene, indicating the concrete mass with his thumb.

'Through a ton of concrete!' I exclaimed.

He laughed briefly.

'Lord, no sir! No, there used to be a tunnel here, going back into the earth under the bridge, and they say it was stable in our time and the future, which is why the evil little pepperpots came this way.'

Aha. Once the Garlicks were blasted to bits, together with Auderley House, UNIT must have decided to block this particular mousehole-in-time with a great big lump of concrete.

He lifted the metal flap and checked an electronic display underneath it, compared it with a notation on his chart and nodded.

'That's an atomic clock. Don't understand how it works myself, but we check to see if it tells the same time as one at Aylesbury – it always does. If there was a variation, then that means someone's been messing about with time, but like I said there's never a problem.'

The plastic covers were taken off the pipes, revealing sets of electrodes. Dene hooked up a gadget to the leads in turn, taking a reading off the meter and noting it on his clipboard.

'This is something the Doctor gimmicked up. No idea what it is, I just take the readings and show them to him, and he goes "hmmm" and that's it.'

That rang absolutely true. Our resident boffin from way-out-there acted just like that.

'All done, sir.'

Taken by surprise, I looked hard at him.

'Honestly, sir. Like I said, nothing to bother about.'

'Okay. I was expecting – oh, more drama.'

Corporal Dene shrugged.

'Sorry we can't oblige, sir. I can tell you what happened here, if you like. That was dramatic enough.'

By this time we were back at the Landrover, about to get climb in, so I nodded my approval. Dene stopped and lit a cigarette.

'With your permission, sir. The hands get a bit shaky when I go over it again. Well, the Garlicks and those big apes they use as musclemen –'

'Ogrons,' I interrupted. 'Yes, I've seen photographs of them.'

'Ogrons, right. They came out of the tunnel entrance there, just as the delegates started to arrive at the mansion. Only three pepperpots, but dozens and dozens of Ogrons. Bloody stupid creatures, didn't try to use cover or advance under fire, just came marching straight on. Mind you, there didn't seem to be any shortage of them, and the Garlicks didn't care about losing any amount of them.'

He paused to take a drag on his cigarette, the glowing tip wavering a little.

'We could have handled the big apes, but the Garlicks were another matter. Nothing we had could scratch them, and they killed anyone within fifty yards with those ray guns of theirs. There was a squad up near the tunnel looking for a couple of men who'd gone missing – they've never turned up, then or since – and they copped for it right off. Sergeant Benton took us up there on the double and we fought them all the way back to the mansion, getting picked off. Still, we made a fight of it. The Project Broom lads counted twenty-eight dead Ogrons between the tunnel and the house. The Doctor probably saved my life when he told the Brig – excuse me, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart – to pull back entirely, shoo the delegates away and let the Garlicks into the house. He must have known there was a bomb in the cellar. That finished them off, and the house too. Close call, really – those politicians refused to leg it double-time, "unbecoming to their dignity" one called it. If they'd have seen what came out of the tunnel they'd have been running, not strolling, out of that mansion!'

Try as I might, the picture of alien invaders from the future rolling across the lawns of Auderley House wouldn't come, and even with Dene's testimony it didn't seem real.

'We put the telly and newspaper reporters in a group, then allowed them to leave once we'd got all their kit. They weren't happy about that. Then UNIT in Geneva got onto the BBC and their editors and squashed the story before it began.'

Now that was entirely more believable. Politicians messing about with the truth I could accept with no bother!

'Time to move on, then,' I ordered. 'And let's swing by the house just to see what it's like.'

We did. The interior of the mansion had fallen into rot and ruin, all the fittings removed, what remained become merely mould and mildew. Although empty it was also full. Full, that is, of ghosts; not the least of which were the twenty-odd soldiers who had died defending it. Looking into the ruins felt like an intrusion.

'Okay, drive on. Drive on. I'm sorry I asked. The past should remain in the past.'

Dene looked at me with mingled respect and surprise.

'Right you are, sir.'

The drive back to Aylesbury took place in silence, me thinking of what took place there years before, Corporal Dene thinking silent thoughts that may have been of the weekend's women or the end of the world. Once we left the Landrover, I took the clipboard.

'My job. I'll go and see the Doctor with this.' Corporal Dene saluted with appreciation and left. It took twenty minutes to locate the Doctor, who had ensconced himself in an alcove on the outer walls of the HQ. From there he would throw quoits at a tent-peg hammered into the ground thirty feet away, pausing to make notes in his immensely thick diary.

'Yes?' he announced, crossly, not indicating that he'd even seen me.

'Readings from Auderley House, Doctor.'

'Ah! Splendid!' he exclaimed, demeanour changing at once. 'Thank you, G – Lieutenant Walmsley. Let me see them. Ah. Hmmm. Yes, yes, yes. All temporally inert. Quite the hypochronicity, wouldn't you say?'

No, that's not what I would have said. I looked at him with a frown.

'Oh, never mind. Military intelligence and all that.'

I hit him with a line learnt years ago.

'"Military Intelligence", Doctor, is an oxymoron.'

He had been getting ready to pitch a quoit at the target, but stopped dead at my remark, staring hard at me.

'Do you know, that's the first time anyone's said that to me since Douglas Haig. And that was back in the Sudan!'

Shaking my head, I made my way back to the Guard Room. Douglas Haig! In the Sudan, no less. That – from what I remembered in military history lessons as an officer-cadet – had been in the late nineteenth century, nearly a hundred years ago. Doctor John Smith must think I'd come up the Irwell on a coal-barge.


	9. Chapter 9

Part Nine: Operation ATHLETE 

_Leek Wootton_

_RAF Group 42 MFU_

_Staffordshire_

_9th August 1945_

Barney trudged into the dimness of the tunnel, not really bothering to look where he was going; years of working in the mine put eyes in his feet. He arrived at the foreman's post, nodded politely to the man and clocked on.

'They want you down on the Third Level, Barney,' said the foreman. 'You're first of the shift to arrive. Wake up early?'

'No, no, Mister Baker. I just like to get to work early. I like to show I can do the job. I'm a good worker, me.'

The foreman nodded kindly. Barney, at six feet six, and weighing in at twenty stone, had the intellect of a small child, which explained why he hadn't been conscripted. On the plus side, his prodigious strength came in extremely useful in the confined tunnel system at Leek Wootton, where space was at a premium because of the immense number of bombs and shells stored there.

'Go on, then. Watch your hands in the cage.'

Barney rode the clanking, shuddering cage from the First Level down to the Third, where the special machinery was stored. He took a good look around at the blank stone walls, the concrete reinforcements and the boxes and drums piled up there, the end product of the experiments carried out there.

From the lift cage to the foreman's office on the Third Level meant a walk of five minutes, none of which Barney enjoyed. He didn't often come down here, being mostly used to heft shells and bombs on the First and Second Levels. Down here was darker, damper and scarier than the better-lit higher levels.

From afar, he spotted the foreman's office, set in the cavity between two reinforced pillars way over in the west of the site. Mister Lidell would be there, waiting for the shift workers.

In fact Mister Lidell wasn't alone in the wooden shack. Another man, whom Barney recognised as one of the RAF Ordnance Officers, was in the shack too. Not only that, both men were drinking from big enamel mugs, pouring from what had to be –

'Oh! That's wicked!' muttered Barney to himself. 'That's spirits they're drinking.'

Maintaining the procedures of respect, he still knocked loudly on the shack door.

'Come in!' bellowed Mister Lidell cheerfully, actually coming forward and opening the door.

Barney entered the shack in confusion, looking at Mister Lidell for guidance. The RAF officer, instantly recognisable by the eyepatch over his left eye, raised a mug in toast to the new arrival.

'Ah, Barney, my boy, I bet you're confused. Eh?' asked Mister Lidell. Barney nodded. Mister Lidell's breath carried fumes of rum on it.

'Confused not the word for it,' commented the RAF officer. 'Befuddled. That's the word.'

'Well, what do you think is going on?' asked Mister Lidell, winking conspiratorially at Barney.

'I do know that drinking spirits is against the rules, Mister Lidell. Against them. Against the rules,' blurted Barney, unhappy but honest.

'Absolutely right!' beamed the foreman. 'This rum, now. My brother in law got me this in 1941, from the Caribbean. He's in the Royal Navy, you know. Anyway, he got me this rum, and I made myself a promise. Not to drink it, you see. No. I promised myself I would only ever open the bottle when the war was over.'

Barney nodded, not following the conversational twists and turns.

'Don't you see, Barney? The war is over. The Japs surrendered yesterday. The Yanks have come up with a super-bomb that destroys whole cities at a time, so they packed up and gave in. This isn't just like VE Day, this is the whole war over.'

Still it didn't sink in for Barney. He had grown up with the war, as part of the background to his life. After six years of experience, how could it suddenly end overnight?

'So we're having a celebration, the Captain and I. Now, I know you don't drink, Barney, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. Have a nip.'

Barney took a cautious sip of the rum, and nearly choked. It felt like drinking hot lead!

'No thank you, Mister Liddell. I don't like that stuff.'

'Top hole,' said the Captain, saluting the teenager with his own enamelled mug. His one remaining eye shut slowly in a theatrical wink.

'Okay, Barney, just sit down on that chair. You can wait here until the rest of the shift arrives. You're early, you know.'

'I'm sorry, Mister Liddell,' mumbled Barney, embarassed.

The foreman gave Barney a friendly clap on the back.

'Sorry? For what! Barney, you may not be the brightest person who works here but if more of them had your attitude to work, I'd be a happy man. Sorry! Don't you be sorry.'

The foreman sat down behind his small, rickety wooden desk.

'I do know who'll be sorry,' commented the RAF officer, jerking his thumb to indicate over his shoulder. 'The War Office. They spend thousands getting the plant down here, do a trial run - ' and he indicated a large, brown box on the foreman's table ' – and then the war ends before they can even start Abelard.'

They ruminated on this for a minute or two before Barney spoke up.

'If the war's over, what will they do with all these bombs and shells, Mister Liddell?'

The foreman pushed back his cap and scratched his thinning hair.

'Good question, Barney. It might stay here in storage for a few years yet.'

At this, the RAF officer commented.

'Not the most recent ordnance, they won't. Those 250 pounders are full of mustard gas. Nasty stuff – corrodes the metal from the inside.'

'Ah, then they'll be shifting them to the depot at Twick Vale,' nodded Liddell wisely. 'Must be full at the moment for the bombs to get stored here. If the weaponry above doesn't get used, Barney, why, I think it might get blown up somewhere desolate.'

The huge teenager wrinkled his brow in puzzlement at "desolate", so the pilot explained: far away from people.

Two more shift workers appeared out of the darkness, both grinning from ear to ear, to stand in the doorway.

'Hello lads!' greeted Liddell. 'Tot of rum?' The workers, both Irishmen from Birmingham, agreed to this unorthodox welcome with hearty assent.

'Have ye heard? That the war is over?' asked the first to take a drink.

'That's good news, isn't it?' asked Barney eagerly. The second Irishman nodded emphatically.

'An end to war, grand. Sliante!'

AARUNIT UK PROJECT BROOM

UKIREP 406SENIOR OC LYLE MJR.

REF. 10072

LOC:ALDERLEY EDGE

CHESHIRE

UK

ITEM:ONE: After warning, as per standing orders, from Fylingdales BMEWS and HMS Inskip, RAF Phantom interceptors of Strike Command operating from RAF Leeming carried out MLI over mainland UK.

TWO: Target vector successfully intercepted. Of estimated 20+ targets, only 5 made landfall.

THREE: Of initial 5 impact points, 4 Nestene drone units were acquired by BLUBOTTLE and subsequently destroyed by Assault Platoon.

FOUR: No trace of missing unit in area, despite exhaustive search. BLUEBOTTLE will continue to monitor.

23:05

UNIT HQ

AYLESBURY

It had not been a good day. The morning mail had brought my fiancee's – _ex_-fiancee's – engagement ring in the post. Whilst being accustomed to my career in the Regular Army, she simply could not and would not tolerate the secrecy that went with my new role in UNIT, which I couldn't discuss with her.

Solo again. My expression for hours afterwards meant people kept clear of me, especially after I went to the gym at lunchtime and knocked the stuffing out of a punchbag.

Then the Duty Officer for the evening shift called in sick; appendicitis. Being still unassigned, I got the job, six in the evening to six in the morning.

People stayed out of my way until I actually started duty. First to come by the whitewashed guardroom was Lieutenant Nick Munroe, full of false cheer, bearing bad tidings.

'Ah, noble Walmsley! Hey, I have both good and bad news. Go on, ask!'

I oiled the slide on my .45 pistol, looking at him coolly.

'Er, okay - the bad news is that – Liz Shaw doesn't fancy you!'

Given that I'd never expected her to do so, this news came as no great surprise, except to Nick, who seemed rather put out.

'Because she's agreed to go out with me, on one condition.'

I waited for the other shoe to drop, not speaking, just letting Nick dangle uncomfortably on the heavy silence.

'And that is that you escort her friend. A double date, if you like.'

Big scowl from me.

'What escapade have you gotten me involved in, you Celtic half-wit?'

'Oh, don't be so ungrateful. You'll get on splendidly. At the weekend, anyway, and I'll tell you later about the details.'

Then I got a call from the QMS, asking if I knew anything about a punch-bag in the gym that had suffered split seams and needed replacing …

Adding insult to injury, the Queen's Lancs rugby team had lost to those unspeakable swine from KOYLI, a disgrace that hadn't happened whilst I had been in the team. Fortunately nothing breakable or small was within reach when I read that in "Lancashire Lad", or I would have been paying monies to the mess fund for years to come.

Time dragged by on leaden feet from six until ten o'clock. The switchboard put through a call to me, directly, sitting at my duty desk looking at charts of fuel consumption versus mileage, ready for my other identity as Battalion Transport Officer.

'Aylesbury Duty Officer,' I began.

'Sir, this is Switch. I have Bluebottle on the line, quoting Hostile Powers from the OSAEPP. Can I proceed?'

OSAEPP: Official Secrets Act, Emergency Powers Provision. Whoever was calling knew which buttons to press. Hastily, I located my pen and a blank sheet of paper.

'Hello Switch, proceed.'

'Hello? Hello, can you hear me?' asked a voice in a Midlands twang.

'Confirm, Bluebottle, this is UNIT Aylesbury, Duty Officer. Please proceed.'

'Oh, right. This is Sergeant Dunstaple of the West Midlands Police.'

S-e-r-g-e-a-n-t D-u-n-s-t-a-p-l-e, I scribbled.

'I'm calling about a couple of suspects we have in custody. Actually it isn't so much about them as the third suspect in custody. The first two suspects loudly declare that our third suspect isn't who he seems to be, that he's a copy of the original.'

Alarm bells began to ring loudly in my mind.

'And I have to agree myself. I've been in the police force for twenty years and this bloke isn't what he seems to be.'

The alarm bells got louder.

'So, since we have to notify you lot of things going wrong or being unusual, I took this first step.'

'Bluebottle, please identify your location.'

'Oh, yes, right. Chace Avenue Police Station, Coventry. We had –'

'Bluebottle, please identify yourself.'

'Sergeant Dunstaple, West Midlands Police, Uniform Division.'

'Thank you Bluebottle. Your contact number please.'

He gave the phone number.

'Bluebottle, we will check and confirm. Please await return call.'

I looked at the notes taken. " 3rd sus. not 10 copy"

Alright, I'd been bored before, that was no reason to add an excess of excitement now. Who was the senior officer available at the moment? Captain Crichton. When I tried his number nobody answered. Okay, try the Brig. In contrast, Lethbridge-Stewart's number got answered within two seconds, and by a lady.

'Er – hello?' I responded, tactfully dim.

'Walmsley!' exclaimed the Brigadier, taking the phone. 'What is it?' "It had better be good" echoed unspoken in the background of his greeting, and I had to agree with that; interfering with a general's entertainment didn't bode good for minor subalterns promotion prospects.

'Potential Hostile activity, sir,' I said, heavy on the gravitas. 'I have Bluebottle, West Midlands, reporting a simulacrum.'

For the space of several heartbeats there was silence at the other end.

'Then get out there and investigate, Lieutenant. Use your initiative, for heaven's sake! Allocate a deputy and rendezvous with Bluebottle. Any results, notify HQ, _not_ here. Good night.'

And goodnight to you too, sir.

Okay, the Brig had given – no, ordered – me to investigate this.

'Guard Room! This is DO Walmsley here. Locate –' and who had earned my enmity recently – ' – locate Captain March and instruct him to RV at Aylesbury HQ as replacement DO, as per Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's orders. Action immediate.'

I laid my hands on the Emergency Response Kit lying under the desk, and ran into Corporal Horrigan en route to the car park.

'You look like a man with a mission, sir,' he commented, wryly, standing back and looking at me with care.

'Too damn true, Corporal. What are you doing now that's unmissable?' I asked, knowing the right question to ask. He blinked a few times, begged my pardon and opened his mouth –

'Nothing, suspected as much, right, come with me.'

Driving a Landrover to Coventry from Aylesbury took almost an hour, during which I filled-in Corporal Horrigan on the situation. It also left plenty of time for question and answer, which is not something I discourage as an officer – it helps the other ranks arrive at a correct solution.

'A simulacrum? What's one of those when it's at home, sir?' asked Horrigan.

'Simply a posh word for a duplicate. A copy. And who do we know who does copies like nobody else?'

He was on the ball.

'Those buggers the Autons, sir! I remember that from their first scheme at the start, way back when. All those people they copied. Bloody hell, sir, we've got a right one if it's them.'

Yes, we did indeed. Except that there was precious little to be going on with at present, bar the feeling of a police sergeant. And my own feelings, if it came to that. Alright, I hadn't been with UNIT for long, but I still knew when things weren't right. Tonight they weren't right.

Chace Avenue station was a brand-new, large, square brick building, far from my idea of a police station, more like the site of a business enterprise. We marched into the lobby and up to the reception desk, where a startled sergeant blinked in surprise at the sudden appearance of two soldiers in uniform.

'Er – yes? Can I help?' he asked.

I produced my ID card. Not a flattering photo, since it makes me look like a demented murderer.

'Lieutenant Walmsley and Corporal Horrigan of UNIT. We're here to see Sergeant Dunstaple.'

A balding, middle-aged man in uniform with a large limp moustache, on the other side of the desk looked up when he heard that surname. He came over to us.

'I'm Sergeant Dunstaple. Let them past, Tony, they're here about that wierdo we detained.'

The sergeant on duty lifted the leaf of his desk and we squeezed past, into the office area itself. Sergeant Dunstaple led us off to a quiet corner.

'I didn't realise you'd come out all this way to check up on us.'

'Here we are,' I began. 'You started alarm bells ringing when you mentioned "copy". At UNIT we equate "copy" with "High function Auton".'

'Yes. I remember them. We got off lightly when they invaded the first time, there were none nearer than Rugby. This lad, though, he got me thinking about them. So that's why I called you. I'm still not sure if it was the right thing to do.'

'If you're wrong then we've had a wasted journey. If you're right then we may have caught another invasion attempt in mid-try.'

'What happened?' asked Corporal Horrigan, more aware of the material aspects of the case.

'Three teenagers got caught trespassing at Leek Wootton. You've not heard of it? I thought you might have. An old MoD site, fenced-off. Local kids try to get in for a dare, like these three, except most of them are long gone by the time a patrol car gets there. This time they were seen getting under the perimeter fence, and we laid hands on them coming out again. The first two, a lad and a girl, were trying to get away like nothing on earth. Really frantic, they were. They admitted trespassing on the site, then said they were trying to get away from the third suspect.'

Horrigan cocked his head to one side.

'Why was that, Sergeant?'

Dunstaple scratched his head.

'It seemed daft at the time. They claimed that their friend wasn't who he seemed to be. It looked like him, and sounded like him, except it wasn't him.'

'So why give credence to a silly story dreamt up by kids wanting to get off the hook?' I asked.

The sergeant took his time answering.

'I've seen endless teenagers, sir, any number of teenaged criminals. Twenty years a policeman, I thought I'd seen it all. But these kids – these kids were scared witless. And why make up such a stupid story if you wanted to try and avoid being prosecuted? No, there was more to this than met the eye. So I interviewed this supposed "copy" of Ian Briggs and – he didn't act right.'

By this time Horrigan and I were anticipating the next statement like an eager audience.

'He didn't behave as if this was a serious situation, sayed cool as an ice cube. Didn't even sweat. Something wasn't right so I decided to call you lot.'

'This Ian Briggs. Has he been in trouble with the police before?'

Dunstaple shook his head.

'Never. None of them were. If you ask me, they did this for a dare and lived to regret it. Their parents are going to be here soon, none too happy with their little darlings.'

'What do you think, Corporal?'

'Autons don't sweat, sir. I think we need to have a chat with our friend Ian.'

Firstly, I worked out a scenario in which the corporal and I were characters. Sergeant Dunstaple showed us to the cells, where a slate outside gave basic details of the prisoners.

"Paula Jones 19/3/67" read the grimy slate. At a nod, Dunstaple opened the door. In the harsh and unflattering fluorescent lighting within, a teenaged girl with a dirty face framed by a curly perm sat up on the bench.

'Yes?' she asked, fearfully. Tears had cleaned a horizontal path down her face, which was a good sign. Autons don't excrete any fluids, you see.

'Miss Jones? My name is Lieutenant Walmsley, and I come from the Ministry of Defence Police. This is Corporal Horrigan, my assistant. I understand you were caught breaking into MoD property this afternoon?'

She nodded.

'Yes but it's only an old –' and she stopped when I held up my hand.

'Are you aware that it is illegal to trespass on MoD land?'

A sniffle and nod from Paula.

'You had no exceptional reason to be on that property?'

'No. It was just a dare.'

'What other criminal convictions do you have?'

None, it transpired. Paula was as clean as you can get, a student taking A levels. She and Fergus and Ian had been dared by other teens at college to get onto the MoD site, get proof that they'd been there and return.

'But there's nothing you can take as proof unless you go into the mine. I wouldn't have done it on my own, it's really scary there, nobody around with lots of derelict machinery. Ian managed to squeeze through a gap in the fence at the mine entrance, then Fergus got in. I just waited and waited until Fergus came back with a big piece of metal. Ian was gone for ages. I got worried, that he might have had an accident in the dark, so Fergus wanted to go in and search for him – he'd brought a torch. Then Ian came back.'

Paula stopped for a moment, a lump in her throat.

'We – Fergus and me – told him to hurry up and get a move on, the light had started to go. Once he got past the fence we asked what had kept him, and he wouldn't tell us, but he kept asking us questions about what we'd seen and been. It was horrible – it sounded like Ian and looked like him, yet it wasn't him. His skin was weird and he didn't behave like he did before.'

'Did you say anything to him about that?' asked Horrigan.

Paula nodded.

'Fergus told him to stop being a prat, and tell us what he'd been doing. I think by this time I'd gotten scared of Ian – the Ian-thing – and I just tried to get away from him really quickly.'

'What did Ian do?' I asked.

'He tried to keep up with us whilst we were running. He didn't stop asking about what we'd seen until the police caught us.'

Horrigan and I exchanged glances before leaving Paula, with a guarantee of no charges being laid against her.

'Oh – I forgot to mention,' added Paula when we were ready to leave the room. 'Whenever the Ian-thing asked a question, it pointed at us.'

Whilst that may not have meant anything to Joe Public, it meant a great deal to us.

'Left or right hand?' asked Horrigan. Right, replied Paula.

We stopped to compare notes outside the cell.

No emotion, strange skin texture, no sweating, no weeping, threatened use of hidden weapon in right hand. Ian Briggs sounded like an Auton copy.

'Should we ask Fergus Nuneally about what happened? Or just go in full steam?' asked my corporal.

'Ask, every time,' I replied. 'Most especially if there are extenuating circumstances.'

Fergus hadn't spent his time in the cell crying, though his face was pale and his expression was drawn. His story confirmed Paula's; that he'd gotten into the mine and noseyed around the entrance shaft, before coming across some metal fragments. Then had come the long wait for Ian, or whatever had replaced Ian. From the first second the Ian-thing spoke, Fergus had got crawling skin.

'It behaved like an Ian-shaped robot,' he summarised. 'And it wouldn't stop asking us what we'd seen and why we'd gone into the mine.'

He was close enough with his guessing. Why had the Auton's copied Ian Briggs?

'Is he important, or are his parents VIP's?'

Fergus shook his head, puzzled.

'Do they work in politics or the defence industry? No?'

Then there was no reason for the Auton's to copy him. Corporal Horrigan cocked his head to one side.

'What's in the mine at Leek Wootton, then?'

Fergus shrugged.

'Dunno. Used to store bombs in the war, I think. Course there's nothing left in there now, nothing big anyway, but I had to get in there to find proof of a visit.'

'Okay, Fergus, thank you. That's all for the moment. I may be back shortly for you to sign a statement.'

We stood outside the cell with Sergeant Dunstaple in attendance.

'They've got no reason to copy Ian Briggs,' stated Horrigan. 'Except they have.'

'Could they have done it in the mine, perhaps?' asked Dunstaple.

I shook my head.

'No. They need plastics to create Auton shells for the Nestene to animate.'

'Then they must have something in the mine that Ian Briggs saw, sir. They copied him, sent the copy out to see who else was noseying around and why. Then out of the blue all three get arrested.'

For a working theory it had merit.

'None of them will be here for long,' cautioned Dunstaple. 'Once the parents get here they'll be out.'

I took him aside and explained why the parents we were expecting would be a bad thing, a very bad thing indeed.

For a minute Corporal Horrigan and I worked out our approach before getting the cell-door opened. Ian Briggs stood in the centre of the grubby little room, which smelt just like cells everywhere – of disinfectant, urine and stale food.

'Ian Briggs?' I snapped, glaring hard at him. He nodded back, entirely unconcerned.

'I am Lieutenant Cooper of the Ministry of Defence Police,' I lied, having already taken my beret off, thus removing a give-away from the UNIT badge. My shoulder flash was obscured by the strap of the Emergency Response Kit, which I unslung to put on the bunk in the cell.

'You are charged with trespass on MoD property, together with two other plaintiffs. Do you have anything to say?' I carried on, harshly.

'Yes,' he replied, in a perfectly normal conversational tone.

'What?' I asked just as harshly as before.

'When can I see Fergus and Paula, my friends. I would like to see them,' he said.

'I'll bet you do, laddie. We'll decide when and where you meet your friends again,' said Horrigan, standing slightly to one side, behind me.

'You are not obliged to make a statement but doing so may expedite the legal process,' I continued, unlocking the Emergency Response Kit, open side facing me. Removing the Auton-zapping device, I carried on with my speech.

'For the record, I am required to take a statement from the plaintiffs for later transcription.'

Things went wrong immediately. An unkown police constable knocked on the cell door, opened it without waiting to be invited and stuck his head in.

'The parents are here,' he complacently called, nodding at Ian Briggs.

'Sir!' shouted Horrigan.

Briggs, still looking totally unconcerned, had swung to point his right hand at me. The whole of his hand, hinged at the wrist, dropped down, revealing a slender probe inside.

Throwing the switch, I stuck the emitter disguised as a microphone at the Auton's face. Briggs instantly crumpled to the floor.

'What's going on!' asked the bewildered police constable, standing in the doorway, watching the lethal pantomime.

'Shut up and get in here,' snapped Horrigan, hauling the hapless officer in, and closing the door. Meanwhile, I edged round the table.

The Briggs-copy lay inert on the floor, no longer showing a human face. Instead a bland, poorly-defined plastic mask existed where seconds before we had seen Brigg's face.

'Creepy,' I said. Horrigan nodded, looking crossly at the intruding policeman. When Sergeant Dunstaple burst in seconds later he directed an equally cross look at the constable.

'Pillock!' was his comment. 'I go to the loo and what do you do? Put lives at risk.' His comments on seeing the plastic replica lying inert on the floor were unprintable.

'I need a phone,' I told him, not debating or asking.

'I'll stay here with matey,' said Horrigan, nodding at the scared police constable.

Dunstaple escorted me to an empty room. I noticed his hand shook slightly when he opened the door. Fair enough; mine wasn't wobbling because the event hadn't sunk in properly yet.

'Duty Officer,' came the tones of Captain March at Aylesbury over the handset.

'Hello this is Trap Two, Chace Avenue Police Station, Coventry. I have to report an Airfix incident.'

Inwardly I cringed at the codename dreamt up by a civil servant.

'Walmsley?' he answered, not sounding very pleased. Nor would I have been, dragged from whatever he'd been doing when the Brig ordered me to Coventry. A cocktail party in the mess, he told me later. 'Airfix? Confirm that.'

'Confirmed. Single unit Airfix.'

'Right! I'll notify the Brigadier. Stand by your phone for any further instructions.'

That meant standing around in the room, literally. The Landrover did have a radio but that wasn't portable so I was forced to stay with the phone. The time wasn't wasted, since I used it to think over what we'd found.

Ian Briggs, alone in the mine, had been duplicated by the Autons. The real Ian Briggs might very well be dead by now as they had no reason to keep him alive once their duplicate was walking around. Why duplicate a teenaged college student with no tactical or strategic or intelligence interest or influence? Not copied for his own worth. Copied because, as Corporal Horrigan shrewdly put it, he'd witnessed Event X or Article Y in the mine. Being suspicious characters, the Autons might wonder if he'd been sent in deliberately as a spy. I suppose the concept of a student initiation rite was completely beyond the Auton's grasp; mine in the QLR had involved swimming the Ribble naked, hard enough for other humans to understand. Anyway, their duplicate left the mine to interrogate Fergus and Paula, who might have witnessed Event X or Article Y too. If the Briggs-copy found out they had, both would have been killed on the spot. Since they hadn't confirmed or denied anything, it refrained from acting hastily.

Now, if the Auton's truly did have a mutual telepathic link, the rest of the plastic buggers would know their Briggs-copy had been blasted into inanimate polystyrene slag. What they wouldn't know was my status as a UNIT officer; they'd be expecting the MoD police, who might be valiant chaps in a pinch but who didn't have a clue about how to tackle evil alien invaders.

The phone rang, breaking my train of thought.

'Trap Two? This is Trap One. We are proceeding westwards. Should be with you in less than an hour. Keep all Bluebottle away from Airfix, out.'

Walking back to the cell, I told Dunstaple he'd need to remain inside it, with his idiot constable for company.

'You'll need to sign the Official Secrets Act, and the extension to it. I think the Brigadier will bring that with him. Oh, we'll need a carpet or similar to wrap that thing up in, to stop other folk seeing it.'

'What about the parents?' asked the constable. I shrugged.

'That's a bit beyond me. I expect they'll all be asked to sign the OSA for themselves and on behalf of their kids. Ian Brigg's parents – well, I don't know about them.'

I never did find out what pressure UNIT exerted on the parents to prevent them talking out of turn. "My teen son's police hell" never appeared in the Sunday papers, so we must have done something right.

The Brig turned up after forty five minutes, towing the Assault Platoon, who were bristling with guns, enthusiasm and nosiness. The inert Auton, concealed in the folds of a tarpaulin, was carried out and unceremoniously dumped in the back of my Landrover. Corporal Horrigan stood guard over it. The idiot constable in the cell, along with Sergeant Dunstaple, signed sheet after sheet of statement, OSA, legal disclaimer and affidavits. Their stories never turned up in the yellow press either.

My turn in the spotlight came with a hastily handwritten account for the Brigadier, given to him for information the moment he stopped ordering police and soldiers around. For privacy, we were outside Chace Avenue station, keeping a discreet distance from potential eavesdroppers.

'Leek Wootton mine,' he mused afterwards. 'What do you suppose they have in there we aren't supposed to see?'

'Worth risking discovery for,' I added. 'A headquarters or an arsenal, perhaps?'

The Brig shook his head.

'I've been up against these Nestenes before. No. Direct action isn't their way, Walmsley. They try to infiltrate, sabotage, work covertly, so they don't have great stockpiles of secret weapons hidden in arms bunkers.'

The Assault Platoon's transport included a Bedford radio vehicle, which had been in touch with Aylesbury. The corporal in charge of signals came clatteing down the steps, out to the Brigadier.

'Confirmation from Aylesbury HQ, sir. No, repeat no, reports of unusual activity from any plastics factories across mainland UK. All UKIREP 406's from the past eighteen months have been checked and re-checked.' He saluted and returned to the vehicle.

'Well, that wipes out another option, Walmsley. No plastic factory, no Autons, no headquarters. Where the devil have they sprung from!' and he smacked his swagger-stick into the palm of his left hand.

Captain Yates appeared from nowhere. He shouldn't have been present, not being part of Assault Platoon. Things at Aylesbury must have been quiet if he was out here with the Brig.

'Ah, Captain Yates. Listen, Mike, get onto Aylesbury. I want a complete check across the UK for all reported Nestene landings or attempted landings, particularly any that have been reported in the Midlands. Corporal Miller!' he shouted. Out came the signals NCO from the radio truck, wearing a quizzical frown.

'Sir?'

'Find out what this Look Weetton – '

' "Leek Wootton", sir,' I helpfully interrupted.

' – yes, _thank you_ Lieutenant. Leek Wootton, corporal. Find out what it is, how large, layout, building plans, that sort of thing. Walmsley!'

'Yes sir!' replied Walmsley with plenty of vim. What now for me?

'Take a section and a Landrover and get over to this place. I want you to keep your distance, observation only. On no account move in until I get there, is that clear?'

'Yes, sir. Why only a section?'

Lethbridge-Stewart cocked an eyebrow at me.

'Because, Lieutenant, dozens of heavily-armed men waltzing over the West Midlands would undoubtedly bring unwelcome attention! Now, if you've quite finished clarifying your orders …'

The Landrover I chose carried one of Nick's buckshee Browning fifty-calibre's, which was fortunate for me later on. The section from Assault Platoon actually numbered only eight men, one standing up in the rear hanging onto the machine-gun, which lurked a couple of feet over my head. Corporal Horrigan came with me in the passenger seat, using a small torch and a map to navigate.

'Don't fire that thing whilst I'm driving,' I warned the gunner. He gave me a knowing grin and a thumbs-up.

The approach road to Leek Wootton didn't possess any lighting, since it was a track running off a B-road. Only a four-wheel drive vehicle like the Landrover could have made it across the ruts and bumps. Eventually we came to a chain fence hung with "MoD Property Keep Out" "Gas Contamination" and "Danger Unexploded Ordnance" signs. The sole entrance gateway was chained and padlocked shut, preventing us from entering.

We were still at least a mile from the mine entrance, and needed to get nearer. One of the soldiers in the back ferreted around in the vehicle toolbox, then came out with a pair of bolt-cutters.

'Instant gate makers,' he commented. Nevertheless I made sure the chain went back around the uprights, making it look untampered with.

Our drive across the scrubby, sandy wasteground was accompanied by the arrival of dawn, which seemed a good thing; observing in daylight is far easier than night-time, unless you have a Starlite scope, and we didn't. The only observation aid we possessed were my Zeiss binocs, privately purchased of course as the Regular Army didn't run to anything that high-quality, let alone UNIT.

Another fence, this one ancient and rusty, yet still upright and preventing any progress, blocked our way any closer to the mine. Using officer's initiative I decided this was the debussing point and shooed the men out.

'Any crowbars in there?' I asked the man who'd produced the bolt-cutters. He rooted noisily in the collection of implements and came out with one. Taking and applying it to the fence, I levered off a couple of uprights, creating a gap big enough for us to squeeze past.

Before we left the Landrover I gave the troops a quick chat.

'Stay low, stay quiet. We're here to observe, not attack. You - ' and I pointed to the man on the Browning ' – are to cover us while we move forward and remain in position. If the plastic plant-pot men _do_ move to attack us, the whole squad will concentrate fire on the lead oppo, until it goes down, then switch to the next target. Who's got the Jimpy? That doesn't apply to you. It takes about two dozen rounds to put an Auton down, and that's what you'll be doing. Right, move out, twenty yards separation.'

The nine of us crept forward in a low crouch. One trooper carried a manpack radio, so I gestured him closer to me; if the Brig called us or we needed to call him the radio had better be close.

Using silent hand gestures, I indicated "stop" and "get down". Our picket line ran across the entrance of what must have been a quarry in decades long past. The ground swept up steeply on either side into ridges that became steep cliff sides, curving round to meet in the middle distance. A good six hundred yards away, directly opposite the site entrance, loomed the mine entrance, three arched brick openings let into the quarry side, with any access blocked by more fencing. If you looked carefully it was possible to make out the remains of railway tracks in the mine's mouth, leading back across the quarry floor and to where we lay. The whole area sported small, unhealthy-looking shrubs, clumps of grass and an air of dereliction.

Nothing happened. Getting bored, I got the troopers to increase their separation. Still nothing happened. One man crawled back to the Landrover and came back with a pair of entrenching tools, which went along the line in turn, allowing us to dig ourselves shallow scrapes, keeping turf on the side facing the quarry to prevent the turned earth from showing up.

One thing seemed apparent from our viewpoint; no traffic had been in or out of the quarry in a long, long time. There were no tracks or paths worn in the grass, between the shrubs or in the sandy ground. Inevitably, given a lack of action or anything to sustain interest, my thoughts turned to the prison cell at Chace Avenue and the Briggs-copy. A second later with that electronic ray gun of mine and the Queen's Lancs would be burying one of their own, not to mention whichever regiment Horrigan hailed from, plus our idiotic interfering police constable.

Corporal Horrigan crawled over to confer with me.

'Nothing moving sir, not now and not for a long time. See how the grass isn't marked? No sign of disturbed soil either. I think we're wasting our time, sir.'

'Maybe you're right, Corporal, but our orders still stand. We watch. Sparks, call the Brig on that thing.'

I got Captain Yates instead – Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was busy elsewhere.

'No sign of any Airfix activity, sir. No sign of any activity at all, in fact. No vehicle tracks, no footprints, no obvious signs of anyone being here.'

'Well, remain as you are. The Brig's gone to try and dig up any more information he can find about that mine, to see what might be down there. Keep your distance.'

Wheels within wheels were rolling whilst I lay on my stomach in the weeds. I got the details later on, from Nick and Captain March. Lethbridge-Stewart decided that the Leek Wootton mine constituted an Immediate Alert situation, and having decided that, he got on to the Home Secretary, who was very grumpy at being gotten out of bed in the small hours. This grumpiness and desire to crawl back between the sheets led to a short sharp call to the Chief Constable of the West Midlands Police. In turn the Chief rang the Chief Superintendent at Chace Avenue, and told him to offer the Brigadier every assistance, at once, if not sooner.

Having got police co-operation, the Brig asked them to look up any past contacts with, or details of, Leek Wootton.

Meanwhile, back at Aylesbury, Captain March was digging back into reports made out for the past two years on Hostile Activity in mainland UK, thousands of the things. Fuelled by black coffee, endless cigarettes and slightly stale sandwiches, he came across details of a form UKIREP 406, number 9347, just after dawn, whilst my section gallantly fought to keep from dozing off by digging deeper foxholes. The report in question detailed a landing in Cheshire of a handful of Nestene energy containers, the things that would activate any Autons already created. These hostile little swine were the survivors of a squadron destroyed by the flyboys in mid-air, and in turn they were collected up by Assault Platoon and given the swift radio-zap of sudden death. Except for one sphere, which wasn't in the impact crater it had made in the damp ground of Alderley Edge. Nor was it in the vicinity. In fact – and Captain March went back and forwards in the sheaf of reports for weeks on either side of the landing – it never turned up, at Alderley Edge, in Cheshire or anywhere else in the UK.

A missing Nestene sphere is a serious matter. The Master, with the aid of one and only one, managed to create the Autons that took part in the Battle of Beacon Hill, plus the killer daffodils and his mini-assassin. Yet nothing untoward had been reported from any plastics factory in Britain. Which again begged the question of where that wretched Briggs-copy came from.

Back to our ennui-laden vigil at the mine, where we occupied ourselves by enlarging our shallow dug-outs. I gave permission for five of the men to "gonk" for two hours whilst the others, including me, kept watch. By this time my own lack of sleep made itself felt and my eyes felt gritty, whilst my stomach reminded me that breakfast was about due. Finding a stick of gum in a pocket, I chewed that to kid my digestive system it was getting food.

To prevent the shades of night falling upon my eyelids I took up the radio and called the Brig.

'Hello Greyhound, this is Trap Two, over.'

'Trap Two, anything to report?'

'Negative, sir. I don't think our Airfix friends use this entrance at all. Permission to recce round the perimeter, over?' I added, more in the pious hope than in expectation of approval.

'Granted,' said the Brig, quickly and firmly. 'Be careful not to get seen, Trap Two. I am advised that the mine is constructed on several levels, with alternate exits and emergency escape routes, so you may come across them. I say again, do _not_ get seen.'

'Confirm that, Greyhound. Over and out.' I looked to Private Holmes, awake and bored to my left.

'Sst! I'm going on a recce, clockwise round the perimeter. Those shop-window dummies must be using a different entrance, not this one.'

Holmes blinked in mild surprise.

'Er – is that a good idea, Boss?'

'Good or bad, I'm doing it. We'd look pretty sick if they caught us on the flank and we only expected them from twelve o'clock.' Besides, I am just _so_ nosey.

Off I went, crouching low, at first working back towards the fence. Travelling discreetly isn't easy for a person of my size and I wanted to be far distant from any Autons on sentry stag. Every thirty yards meant a stop to scope the land ahead with the binoculars. More scrubby bushes, gradually getting closer together, with small trees interspersed amongst them. The further on I travelled the more trees grew, until my steps were muffled by the accumulation underfoot of mossy mould, with lots of thick undergrowth. No dry or brittle branches, luckily, or my progress would have been embarassingly detectable. The lessons about moving covertly in the fields and hedges of Ulster were coming back to me.

Then, out of nowhere, a path appeared in front of me. I'd hit it sideways on, and it ran off to either side of me, vanishing into the undergrowth.

Animal track, I told myself. Then a sudden absence imposed itself on me: no sounds of animals. Most especially, no birdsong. The dawn had come and gone without a single bird singing.

My skin suddenly went gooseflesh. This land was virgin wood, uninhabited by man, surely prime territory for birds. One of the Army instructors for the fieldcraft course in Ulster warned us that an ambush might give itself away if it disturbed the local wildlife.

Did an emotionless plastic robot have me in it's sights right now? From being totally gooseflesh my skin went to a cold sweat. My ears became hyper-sensitive, ready to pick up the slightest hint of movement, as I swivelled my head slowly from side to side.

Nothing suspicious.

I reflected on the absence of birdsong. A universal absence, not simply in this section of the mine grounds. Okay, so the Autons weren't waiting in ambush just to get me, their presence here had scared away all the wildlife already. Feeling a tad less vulnerable, I moved parallel to the path, heading towards the mine. Very slowly and carefully.

My reward was to witness the path broadening, bearing the imprints of booted feet, then slanting downwards to a dark, narrow opening in the sloping hillside that backed the quarry on the other side. A rusted motorbike with flat tyres, weeds growing enthusiastically over it, lay to one side of the path near the entrance. Using the binoculars, I might have noticed a slight movement within the gloomy confines of the entrance, but couldn't be sure whether it was real or imagined.

Discretion moved uppermost in my mind. Get out of here with skin intact, get back to picket line, pass on information. That took longer than you might suppose, travelling only thirty feet at a time, checking for any sound of pursuit, moving to avoid any potentially noisy or compromising ground.

Everybody had awoken by the time I got back to the picket line, waiting expectantly.

'Sir? Find anything?' asked Corporal Horrigan.

'Oh yes, Corporal. A nicely worn path leading to a dungeon entrance. Footprints. An abandoned motorbike.' I didn't mention the movement within – that could be weeds blown by the wind, plastic rubbish left by scavengers, anything, nothing important. 'Sparks, get the Brigadier.'

'Greyhound, this is Trap Two, over.'

'Anything to report, Trap Two?'

'Still no further movement, sir. I did discover a side-entrance to the mine, however. A path's been worn away in the undergrowth to the entrance, and I saw footprints left in it. Given the rainy weather, they must be new, and because they're under the leaf canopy they can't be seen from above or any distance away. Also, there's an abandoned motorbike by the entrance. Evidence of visitors in the past, but not very recent. Over.'

'The Devil you say, Trap Two! That chimes with the evidence the Chief Superintendent dug up at the police station. Wait one –'

Evidence. Evidence of what, I wondered.

'Aha,' explained Captain Yates several days later. 'The Chief Superintendent in Coventry remembered hearing about Leek Wootton ages ago and got his men to chase it up in the card indexes.'

Knowing how the heirarchy works, a sergeant in Coventry probably remembered hearing about Leek Wootton and the Chief Super took the credit. The card indexes brought up the case of the "Satan's Slaves" Hells Angels. These splendid upstanding examples of humanity had gotten into the mine at Leek Wootton by pulling part of the perimeter fence down, then riding their bikes into the mine via a ventilation shaft – that same dark entrance I'd witnessed. What mayhem they got up to was limited to a few hours in duration, since they were pounced upon by a whole Division's worth of police with dogs, vans and a water-cannon when they emerged above-ground. A single bike, engine seized into uselessness, remained at the mine.

So, by deduction, the Nestenes and their Auton vehicles weren't in residence when the Hell's Angels turned up, or the police would have been shovelling up a lot of dead bikers.

One of the bikers, Big Toby Smalls by name, was now serving a five year sentence in Holloway, so the Brig sent Captain Crichton and Sergeant Benton to interview him. Crichton to be Mister Nice, Benton to be Mister I'd-Love-To-Stamp-On-Your-Face, at a guess. According to them, the enormous and tattooed Toby had refused to say anything at all, despite severe threats, even when the sergeant slipped on a pair of tarnished knuckledusters whilst wearing exactly no expression.

'What got to him was an appeal to his patriotism,' explained Captain Crichton over port, musing over the foibles of his fellow man. 'That he might have information germane to the threat to UK security. Eyes got big as dinner plates at that. O and did he have a tale to tell.'

Eighteen months ago, Toby and his fellow chapter members rode their bikes into the gently sloping ventilation shaft, out of mischief and a sense of adventure. A fan, completely blocking the tunnel, and rusted into a solid piece of iron oxide, stopped their progress underground. They tied chains from it to half a dozen bikes and reversed, pulling it free and enabling their bikes to move further underground. The shaft led to the lowest level of the mine, a vast, dark, echoing collection of chambers and pillars. The chapter put their bikes into a circle, facing inwards, with headlights on, and lit a bonfire. After downing several gallons of cider, whisky and some amyl nitrate, they proceeded to have a kickabout with a weird football that Scabby brought along from Alderley Edge.

Anyone reading this after-action account will instantly realise that the mystery football was in fact the missing Nestene sphere. Alerted by strange lights and flashes in the night sky, the Angels found it after the swarm survivors landed near their campsite at Alderley Edge, picked it up and disappeared smartish. They carried it all the way to the West Midlands, then took it underground. No wonder nobody managed to find the damn thing!

They had left the strange plastic ball in the underground chamber, said Toby, when leaving to travel on again, except all the pigs in Birmingham were waiting for them outside, still it had been a good ruck and did any of this help mister?

It helped Toby – he got a transfer to an open prison and nine months knocked off his sentence.

Captain Crichton phoned the information to Aylesbury quickly, and they called it in to the Brig.

' – do you copy, Trap Two?' asked the Brig, having given me a potted account of the above. 'I'm trying to find information about the mine, but it isn't easy since the damn place closed nearly thirty years ago. Maintain your holding position.'

Just what I planned on doing. Bravely stay in our little foxholes and remain grimly determined to not fall asleep. I sent Holmes back to the Lanny to get rations, and he came back with them, looking alarmed.

'Sir, Private Cole says there's a problem with the Browning.'

My eyebrows rose and my spirits sank. That gun constituted the main weapon we had; it was the only thing here that would stop the flowerpotmen at a distance, or at least keep them far away enough not to kill us. Sporting a few curses, I got up to see what the problem was.

'Ssst!' hissed Horrigan, pointing. A small brown object in the middle distance came into view, wandering across the wasteland in a zig-zag in a rapid trot. The binoculars revealed it to be a fox.

'It's a fox,' I tersely explained, getting up again from my viewing crouch.

Corporal Horrigan knew more about foxes than I did.

'A fox, in daylight, moving towards men with guns? Not likely, sir.'

I took another look through the bins. Looking with suspicious eyes this time, remembering the lack of wildlife in the quarry and wood – until now. That zig-zag movement suddenly didn't seem at all random, in fact it would bring the creature right up to our position if allowed. The fur looked – wrong.

'Who's the best shot here? Right, Holmes, give it three rounds rapid.'

With the first shot a great hole appeared in the foxes middle, spraying white plastic for yards about. The second shot removed most of the head; the simulacrum continued on it's path for a second until the third shot knocked it over, legs still going. Gradually they stopped moving.

Great. An Auton scout. Now they knew we were here, possibly how many of us there were.

'Sparks, get onto Greyhound. They know we're here. I anticipate an attack.'

Whilst the radioman called up the Brigadier, I doubled back to Cole and the problematic machine-gun.

'I can't depress it enough to hit them if they come out of the mine, sir,' he apologised.

'Drive through the fence, then. They know we're here, it can't make things any worse.'

He shrugged apologetically.

'Already tried, sir. Battery's dead.'

I hit myself on the head, hard, with my pistol butt, calling myself several nasty names. Being the driver, I must have forgotten to turn the headlights off when we arrived, since it was getting to be daylight, and now the battery had drained.

'Okay, let's unlatch the gun. Get it down and we can take it to the picket line.'

Cole released the machine gun from it's mounting on the pintle and struggled to get it down. Getting impatient, I climbed into the Lanny, in time for Horrigan to call "Sir!" in an urgent tone. Both Cole and I looked up, over to the mine entrance. A section of the fencing fell outwards to the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust. Out of the entrance stalked three Autons, clad in blue boiler suits, plodding their way towards us.

The old and hackneyed saying is that the blood runs cold. Mine ran cold about my lower limbs. I grabbed a greasy cloth from the bed of the Lanny, draped it on my right shoulder and hefted the Browning receiver up there, grunting with the weight, holding the barrel to steady it. When I jumped off the back of the vehicle I nearly went into the ground, the damn gun was so heavy.

'Bring the ammo boxes!' I wheezed at Cole, then walked – the fastest I could go - back to the fence. Once there, I grabbed the handles, rolled it off my shoulder and dragged the thing that way, trailing the muzzle. This was pretty fast movement. My idea was to set up the gun on a tripod in the middle of the picket line, from where it could cover the whole of the quarry area with no trouble.

Cole scotched this plan when he came up with three boxes of ammunition.

'No tripod, sir. Didn't come with one, haven't got one.'

Those three plastic horrors were still coming on. I estimated their speed and distance. They'd be here in a couple of minutes, three at the outside.

'The Brig's on his way with the rest of the Assault Platoon, sir,' said Sparks, hopefully.

'Unless they get airlifted in, with heavy weapons to boot, they can't help us in time. At least there's only three of the things.'

'Er – sir,' said Horrigan, pointing to the mine entrance again. At least a dozen of the boiler-clad figures were leaving it.

'Great! Terrific! What else can go wrong!' I snarled, getting angry. Looking around, I couldn't even spot a handy rock or tree we could rest the Browning on. 'Right! That bloody well does it! I'm going to carry this gun myself and shoot from the hip!'

Brave words. The gun kicked too much for that and if I'd been less irate I'd have realised that.

'Hang on, sir, you need a harness,' said Horrigan. Yes I did but since we didn't have one - He kicked open an ammo box and pulled the belt of bullets out, pulling it over my left shoulder and under my right arm, twisting the bullets and interlocking them to make an impromptu harness. He and Cole lifted the gun up and through the harness under my right arm.

'Make it muzzle-heavy,' I said. 'The recoil will lift it. And cock it for me, I can't reach.'

Cole gave me the greasy cloth.

'For holding the barrel, sir. It'll get too hot to hold with your hands.'

Remembering that the Browning made a lot of noise, I spat my gum out, divided it into two and stuffed each half into an ear. Yes, pretty disgusting. I'm not complaining, it saved my eardrums.

'I'll –' began Horrigan, before I cut him off.

'You'll stay here, Corporal. Keep an eye on both flanks, because I'm not going to risk more than one life rectifying _my_ mistake.'

Off went Lieutenant Walmsley, full of fire and thunder, toting his extremely heavy machine gun.

Now, I've fired a machine gun from the hip, the good old Jimpy. The tricks are to lean into the recoil, balance the gun correctly and adjust the fall of shot by watching the tracers. With the Browning I let the jury-rigged harness take the weight, which meant the bullets dug into my left side like teeth. The greasy cloth protected my hand grasping the barrel shroud.

The blue boiler-suited killers had got to about a hundred yards away. I lifted the gun muzzle and lined up the middle Auton, then fired. The _bang-bang-bang_ was impressively loud, even with my chewing-gum ear-protectors, and the bullets went high as the barrel jumped upwards. For the next burst I deliberately aimed low, allowing the gun's natural climb to bring the tracers onto target. The Auton disintegrated into plastic chunks, to a ragged cheer from the men in their foxholes. I swung the gun round to the left hand Auton, which had now sped up into a jog. Another burst and that one flew apart from the waist up, then back to the right and the last boiler-suit, who was dodging about. He got a long burst, as by this time I'd gotten the trick of aligning the gun with my body to control the recoil. It was very hard work, and my muscles felt the strain. Only anger, I think, allowed me to manage the job.

'Ammo!' I called over my shoulder, and Cole came running up with another belt. His impressed swearing fell on pretty deaf ears. There were about thirty rounds left on the belt, so I sprayed the oncoming Autons, knocking a couple to bits and removing the head from one, which still walked on in a circle, staggering drunkenly. Cole reloaded and I played the rounds over the oncoming enemy, trying to limit the bursts to three rounds at a time. They had blue tips, meaning "Incendiary", and they set alight the Autons they hit, regardless of how much impact damage they did. By using up the whole belt and half another I got all of them, by which time the greasy protective cloth was smoking and my whole body ached as if I'd been worked over by masseurs wearing iron gloves.

Cole helped me lurch back to the picket line, where Corporal Horrigan congratulated me. Not that I could hear him properly, so he slapped me on the back. Sparks tried to give me a message, gave up and merely did a thumbs-up.

Feeling half-dead and numbed, I sat on the edge of my foxhole, looking at the stinking plastic pyres out in the quarry. Also, with a sinking feeling, to another wave of Autons, blue boilersuits and all, emerging from the mine entrance and walking at a brisk pace towards us, at least two dozen this time. Perhaps if I slung the Browning from my right shoulder, or got one of the troopers to hold –

Great bright blue tracers, big as golf balls, suddenly lanced from behind our position, heading into the Auton ranks. Plastic bodies blew apart in a storm of confetti-like fragments. Streams of more tracers, hundreds at a time, came sleeting from behind, lancing into the enemy. They were only 7.62 calibre, not the heavy Browning rounds, but they disintegrated the flowerpotmen simply because there were hundreds of them flying about. The tracers swept across the weedy terrain like a scourging fire, knocking about the plastic debris that the cannon shells left. This display of gunfire went on for a good half minute, until nothing bigger than a plastic foot in a plastic boot remained of the Auton attackers.

When it penetrated my recoil-dulled mind after the space of several heartbeats that this fire came from behind us I turned around, to see an array of trucks and Landrovers driven over and through the fence, all kitted out with Nick Munroe's ill-begotten firepower. The recoilless rifle, mounted on the ex-para lorry, fired off a round that I saw sail slowly across the quarry and into the mine entrance, detonating in a huge cloud of dust. No more Autons emerged after that. Five more rounds were fired into the rubble-strewen entrance anyway, rather than have to carry them home again. Nick himself stood behind the Oerlikon, grinning broadly. His opening salvo, according to witnesses, was accompanied by the phrase "Say hello to my magic bang-stick, you plastic -'

I stood up, Browning still hanging from the improvised harness, when Lethbridge-Stewart came striding up to see what had happened.

He didn't speak loudly enough for me to hear, until Corporal Horrigan leaned in and told him what occurred.

'Sir,' I said, probably much too loudly. 'Ian Briggs may still be in there, alive.'

The Brig nodded.

'I know. That's why I brought along a guide,' he shouted. I remembered the gum and pulled it out from my ears. 'You weren't firing that HMG on your own, were you? Good grief!' he exclaimed, at a loss for words.

The guide turned out to be a poorly-dressed man in late middle-age, as large as me, looking nervous and sweaty. Mike Yates stood at his elbow, acting as escort.

'This is Barney Williams. The police dug him out for us – I think the Chief Super knew him. Barney used to work at Leek Wootton when it was an ammunition depot, back during the war and afterwards, didn't you?'

The big man nodded shyly, not happy at being out here in the midst of a collection of soldiers with guns. Not only that, his behaviour didn't convey much of an intellect at home upstairs.

'Can you lead a team into the mine?' asked the Brig, not bothering with niceties. Barney nodded. The Brig turned back to me.

'I'm afraid the only two people who know what Ian Briggs looks like are yourself and Corporal Horrigan. Are you up to going down the mine to try to rescue him, or his body if the Autons have killed him? Just say if you're not. Frankly, you look pretty used-up, Lieutenant.'

Pique put a touch of steel into my backbone.

'I can manage, sir. Give me the section and we'll clear the mine.'

First things came first. The Emergency Response Kits from each vehicle were divested of the Auton-zapping device, giving us a close-range killer for the job. Beyond point-blank would be a problem; you can't use explosives or automatic fire in an enclosed space since the shock waves of the former will stun or kill you and the latter are likely to ricochet everywhere.

One of the squaddies came up with an answer. He brought a tennis ball up to the Brigadier, saluting smartly. To our curious looks, he drew a bayonet, sliced a neat slit in the ball and pushed the omni-directional head of the anti-Auton device into the ball. With an over-arm throw, he pitched the ball a good fifty feet. The device still worked after that, to the satisfaction and congratulations of all watching. I gave Corporal Horrigan a phosphorus grenade and kept the only other one for myself. They make a tremendous cloud of smoke and the phosphorus can chemically burn you to death whilst poisoning you simultaneously; not to be used lightly.

Nick Munroe was refused permission to accompany us underground. Sulking, he collared me and handed over a Verey signal pistol with five flares.

'Never tried this at Swafham Prior, did we? I think it'll turn them into molten polystyrene slag. Watch out, there's one in the breech.'

That constituted the only signal pistol we had. I'd better look after it.

'We need to go down the air shaft,' said Barney, beginning to look even twitchier. 'That goes right down to the third level in the mine.'

By "air shaft" he meant the ventilation duct that the Hell's Angels rode down. A nasty confined space with no cover, in other words, where the super tennis balls of doom had better work. The first problem would be getting there without being spotted. Or it would have been without the newly-arrived FV432, an armoured personnel carrier on loan from the Regular Army, and which is basically a big lightly-armoured box on tracks. The Brig gave the driver instructions and he simply drove his fifteen-ton sardine can through the undergrowth and trees, making directly for the ventilation shaft, leaving a trail of crushed weeds, shrubs and splintered trees. The section jogged along behind, me trailing in the rear with a thousand aches and pains.

Once at the shaft entrance, Barney took a look around, saw nothing suspicious and nodded approval to me. I nodded to Holmes, who pitched the filled tennis-ball down the tunnel entrance from the safety of outside, and from well back, too. A wise precaution; a blast of what must be Auton ray-gun blew chunks out of the beaten path only feet from Holme's feet. Only the once. When the device got switched on a clatter came from further inside the tunnel, as whatever did the firing collapsed.

I hoped! To be on the safe side, another filled tennis-ball got pitched down the tunnel, then dragged back and the device turned on every few yards. In this way any Autons lurking between the first zapper and the entrance would get zapped themselves. So ran the theory.

'Cole,' I ordered. 'Get that axe from the tin can.' All AFV's carry external kit like spades, cables and axes, and that axe would be useful.

We shone a flashlight down the tunnel entrance, finding it clear. At a gesture the FV432 manouevred closer and shone it's lights down the tunnel, lighting it up brilliantly for at least thirty yards. Beyond that a dim object, prone on the tunnel floor, could be made out. Holmes gave it a pummelling from twenty 7.62 rounds to make sure.

When the eleven of us quietly moved down the incline, the object showed itself to be an very battered Auton in boiler-suit, lying silent and still. The weapon in the right hand still extended, inert but threatening.

'Cole,' ordered Corporal Horrigan. 'Axe that gun thingy.' Cole did, splintering the delicate probe into pieces, almost severing the hand in two. There was a slight delay in passing the plastic body when a mystified Barney stopped to gawk at it.

Once more we carried out the tennis ball procedure, with no results this time. In fact there were no more Autons waiting in the tunnel.

'I'd have expected them to try an ambush here,' I muttered to Horrigan when clambering over the friable, rusted remains of the giant fan. Barney warned us that the fan marked the halfway point.

Long minutes later, ten at least, our little group reached the bottom of the tunnel, where I stopped for a recon of the terrain beyond. A door once blocked the entrance here, decades ago. Now it lay on the floor further inside the mine proper. Barney looked at it suspiciously.

'That weren't left like that by us.'

No, Barney, you simpleton, I thought. "Us" had left it over twenty five years ago. In the meantime there'd been the Hell's Angels and the Autons, and maybe legions of destructive teenagers out looking for spoils.

'Good spot to concentrate fire on us, sir,' commented Corporal Horrigan. We'd be easy targets stepping out of the tunnel into the underground chamber.

I risked a quick flashlit glimpse of the third level, seeing dark, massive pillars marching off into the darkness. A shadow moved behind one pillar, making me jerk hastily back into the tunnel.

"_Auton_," I mouthed to the others, pointing at the pillar in question. Not only was it waiting in ambush, it was behind a pillar that would block out any signals from the zappers. Impasse.

'Get ready with that pistol, sir,' warned Horrigan in a stage whisper. He turned to me and produced his WP grenade, made sure the pin remained securely in and winked hugely.

'Phosphorus grenade!' he called, throwing it underarm. The grenade bounced and rolled towards the suspect pillar, the Auton realised demise courtesy of burning phosphorus loomed large and retreated to the left. I fired the round loaded in the Verey pistol at the Auton once it cleared the pillar, only managing to hit the thing's left leg with what seemed like a glowing scarlet firework. Any worries that hitting a limb wouldn't do much damage were quashed when the Auton lit up like a petrol-fuelled bonfire, flames rippling up from the melting leg and setting the front of the creature alight. Down it went as one leg disintegrated, illuminating the whole area, and incidentally creating a vile black column of smoke. In only seconds the jerking plastic facsimile became a small, static, stinking bonfire. In the handy light cast by this I checked silhouettes against nearby pillars.

'All clear. Move to that pillar and provide cover,' I ordered. Horrigan retrieved his grenade and we moved on, Barney directing from safety in the middle of our group. I didn't want to risk a civlian life unless there was no alternative, and we needed his guidance in the vast, dark and patternless (to us) chambers of the mine.

'Do you know where you're going?' I asked him. He nodded so positively I felt apprehensive straight away. Yeah, right, Barney, you don't fill me with confidence.

Auton-zappers at the ready, we crossed an open space where ancient ashes lay – the Satan's Slaves little evening fire. More scurrying behind pillars ensued, still without the Autons putting in an appearance. Two destroyed down here, at least forty up in the quarry. Maybe they were running out of expendable soldiers? Maybe. Don't count on it, John my lad.

Barney's directions led us to a parade of chambers on either side of a concrete floorway, each chamber sporting an arched and reinforced brick roof. Several of the chamber roofs were cracked, and plaster, bricks and rubble lay on the floor underneath. Beyond the parade he stopped to turn to us and indicate silence with a finger on the lips. He beckoned me forward. By now my eyes had adjusted to the underground gloom, a gloom slightly dissipated by light from the ventilation tunnel.

A larger open area lay beyond this storage zone. Along the far walls stood a series of reinforced pillars set into the fabric of the walls, and between two such pillars a delapidated shack stood, with an Auton standing outside. Sentry duty? Could it be guarding Ian Briggs? Out in the open like that it made a vulnerable target, nor was it hiding in wait for us. It must be a sentry!

Unfortunately the sentry was beyond the range of our killer microphones. To destroy it we'd need to decoy it closer.

Barney tugged me back into the parade, pointing to the walls opposite those where the shack stood.

'Look, the machine's still there. It's still there.'

He displayed a hitherto unexpressed excitement at seeing this mysterious machine.

'What are you talking about?' I hissed at him, not sharing his childish high spirits.

'The machine! The one that made plastic boxes!' he said.

"Plastic boxes" registered with me, and also most of the troopers in the section. More specifically, "plastic" registered.

'"Plastic"? Plastic as in what the Autons are made of? Autons – the plastic people we've been fighting in the tunnels. Plastic?'

For a good thirty seconds Barney stood and pondered.

'Not plastic. Backerlight. That's what I meant. Backerlight.'

I directed an exasperated glance at Corporal Horrigan. Spare me the help of idiots!

Then it struck me. If that machine constituted a plastic-processing facility then we had a chance to decoy that sentry away from the shack it was guarding. Threaten the Auton factory line and all the nasty plastic-kit men nearby would run to rescue it.

Cue sneaky floor-hugging approach by Lieutenant Walmsley and Private Holmes. We slid and scraped by inches over the concrete floor to the machine, turning every so often to check for things creeping up on us.

The machine itself was immense. Long and high, rollers, conveyor belts, levers, presses, drums, ovens and other kit I didn't recognise, laid out along the stone walls of the mine for hundreds of metres. Far too well-maintained to have been neglected for decades down here.

Private Holmes waved a hand at me, then pointed over to the middle of the huge machine complex.

Ah. The "wierd football" that Tiny and friends kicked around lay along the side of the machine, in just such a position that it could exert an influence on the machine. Past tense. The Nestene sphere lay inert, non-glowing, dead to all intents if you didn't realise what it happened to be.

What trouble that dead plastic art-deco football had caused! From the Bestiary, it seemed obvious that the Nestene sphere had by a chain of coincidences been placed exactly where it could cause most harm, that it was able to activate the equipment down here, the machine Barney got excited about. For eighteen months it had been working away in complete isolation, untroubled by any human intervention.

'What now, sir?' asked Holmes.

I took a minute to think. We wanted that sentry decoyed away from the wooden shack, which wasn't in a direct line of sight of the machinery, so a noisy method had to be used. A Mark 36 hand grenade, which makes quite enough noise in the open and which would sound like the Last Trump in the confines of Leek Wootton. Holmes surrendered up his grenade and I moved down the machinery, finding a set of pressurised metal tanks that looked a good bet. Waving Holmes back, I put another round into the Verey pistol and handed it to him, then pulled the pin on the grenade and rolled it around the other side of the tanks, scrambling further back to get shelter from the blast. Only then did I open my mouth and shut my eyes, to prevent ear-drum rupture and dazzling.

BANG! Went the grenade, making the floor quiver and sending a cloud of vapour from the ruptured tanks spraying over the production line, a spray which caught alight and burned like a giant candle, roaring and echoing.

Given a cue like that, the resident Auton came racing over, emerging from shadows into the fitful light of the burning vapours, only to receive a flare in the chest. Within seconds it was a flaming pile of molten plastic. Seeing that the coast was clear, Corporal Horrigan and another trooper ran to the decaying wooden hut, kicked the door in and rescued a very much alive but scared witless Ian Briggs. Both parties met back at the pillars of the storage area.

'Hurry, hurry, they may come down in the lift,' warned Barney, looking fretful. That made me pause – the prospect of annoyed Autons from the upper levels catching up with us in the ventilation tunnel hadn't occurred.

'Corporal – get the prisoner and the rest of the party above ground. Barney, you and I are going to find that lift and nobble it. Don't argue, Corporal – but give me that WP grenade.'

A highly reluctant Barney and I set off across the mine galleries, me leading with the Verey pistol pointing sternly forward, Barney coming along behind, muttering to himself. The illumination provided by the burning vapours still venting from the production line allowed me to see amongst the massive pillars of the mine, throwing evil shadows in the flickering light, and revealing a complete lack of Autons. Where were they all hiding? Given that they were telepathic, they must know we'd gotten into the mine on the lower level and destroyed three of their number. If they all introduced themselves at once, I could bowl them out with the two phosphorus grenades, something not possible if they weren't around. It took the pair of us a good five minutes to get to the lift, dodging in and out between the pillars according to Barney's sense of direction. Without him I'd have been lost within thirty seconds in the maze of identical pillars and alcoves.

Barney tugged on my elbow.

'The lift, the lift,' he hissed, anxiously, pointing. The lift indeed, fifty yards ahead in the fitful gloom. A framework of girders and grillework, once again not at all rusted or corroded after all these decades of neglect. We crept closer, my eyes going in all directions at once, hearing a faint clanking and rattling coming from the upper reaches of the liftwork. Getting right up to it allowed me to see that the lift itself was stuck, wedged in the shaft at the top of the ceiling. Whoever – or whatever – was up on the second level couldn't get down to the third level, and to judge by the way they were shaking the lift cage, they definitely wanted to get down here.

Once again this called for thinking on the hoof. Using the grenades might well dislodge the lift-cage and actually help the Autons. I hastily undid my bootlaces and tied them to the WP grenade pins, working the pins carefully until they were nearly loose, then wedged the grenades into the framework of the cage on either side of the entrance. Deciding that the Autons weren't daft enough to miss such an obvious tripwire, I removed the grenades, then stuck them in the grillwork on opposite sides of the structure, with the lacing reaching across the liftshaft; hopefully when the lift itself came down – well, join the dots.

After our sabotage effort, we both left at high speed; the rattling those plastic horrors were giving the lift-cage meant they'd free it soon. Discretion took second place to speed, and here Barney led the way. By now flames from the burning production line were dying down, leaving us in a near-impenetrable darkness where I had to trust Barney to find the way out.

Speed proved to be a double-edged sword. Moving at a silent run, or the closest manageable when one person's unlaced-boots threatened to leave his feet, Barney came broadside to a pillar, from in front of which stepped an Auton, levelling it's right hand.

Barney made a loud exclamation. So did I; his body blocked the Auton from Verey flare or electronic zapper. Next second Barney hit the Auton with a piledriver right uppercut, delivered with all his weight and speed behind it, and he carried on without stopping.

The boiler-suited thing went sprawling on the floor, weapon firing at the ceiling instead of at us. A huge cloud of plaster and earth fell upon the Auton, and I gave it a flare in the chest when I ran past.

'Nice punch,' I gasped to Barney, just as a double detonation further back in the mine sent echoes rolling around the walls; the grenades at the lift-shaft. That might delay the Autons; it wouldn't stop them.

In fact, I realised, they must have been unable to get out of the mine's normal entrance. All that shelling from the recoilless probably sealed them in under hundreds of tons of rock. Maybe it dislodged the lift-cage and misaligned the shaft, too. So this would be their only way out and they'd be trying harder than ever to reach it.

By now we were retracing our steps over bonfire remnants, both the Hell's Angel's ashes and the roasted Autons of earlier. Despite the ventilation provided by the uphill shaft, the air down here still reeked of burnt plastic and a smoky haze overlay the light coming from the shaft entrance. Barney would have dashed up the tunnel without a pause if my restraining hand on his shoulder hadn't stopped him.

'Let's warn them first, hm?' I cautioned him. 'Hey there! Party of two coming up!' I bellowed up the shaft, then pushed Barney onwards. Before following I left the last grenade at the bottom of the entrance, put two flares next to it and fired the last one into the collection, then ran upwards, spurred on by the sound of clattering footsteps coming closer in the darkness, from deeper in the mine. Fear lent wings to my boots and I fairly shot up the tunnel, receiving a buffet from behind when the over-heated grenade below exploded. In no time at all I leaped from the tunnel entrance, under the watchful eyes of my section, the Brig, the APC and a couple of Landrovers pointing machine guns at me.

'Is it really you, sir?' asked Cole, moving closer with that axe, eyeing me suspiciously. Corporal Horrigan offered me a cigarette in silence.

'You don't think an Auton copy would be so tired,' I gasped, with a few well-placed adjectives, 'not to mention feeling like a Chieftan tank just drove over – what?'

Cole's face had changed in an instant from reassurance to horror, and he came at me, swinging the axe. Cringing, the blade missed me and instead hit the Auton that had just emerged from the tunnel, singed, battered, and now minus a weapon as Cole's axeblade smashed into it's right hand.

Rage gave me a burst of strength. I grabbed the plastic replica by the crotch and throat, suffering a blow to the chest whilst doing so, and hurled it in the direction of the APC, snarling a series of insults.

Seeing the Auton sit up, the APC driver gunned the engine and rolled forward six feet, crushing the animated dummy into a mess of splintered plastic three yards long and one yard wide.

'Right! Torch that tunnel!' shouted the Brig. The APC rumbled forward again. The small turret on the upper hull, which I presumed to contain a machine-gun, suddenly spouted a long tongue of fire which boiled into the tunnel entrance. A flamethrower. More than that, a vehicle-mounted flamthrower with lots of fuel, since the weapon fired several long bursts down the tunnel. When the FV432 finally pulled back the recoilless rifle put in an appearance, firing shells down the tunnel until the roof collapsed with a low thunder, sending black fumes and dust clouds gusting out from the tunnel mouth.

Yours truly felt utterly worn-out. No sleep, no food, no rest, being stunned by the Browning, choked by plastic fumes and run ragged in the dark had all taken their toll. Nick gave me a swig of his flask, then a mint to cover the smell of whisky.

'Thanks,' said a wobbly voice behind me. I turned slowly round – my back killing me as I did so – to see a pale, sooty Ian Briggs. 'Thank you,' he said again, his voice trembling. He got a feeble smile and a tired wave in acknowledgement.

Barney came to see me before being led away to sign the OSA, or, more likely with a big kid like him, a stern lecture and cream cakes.

'You're strong, you are, mister,' he mumbled. 'To throw them things around like that.'

'You're no slouch yourself, Barney,' I replied. 'That was a dynamite punch. Hey, before you go – the Chief Super at Chace Avenue said you worked here, during the war. Did you work with that machine? The one that made Bakerlight?'

He visibly straightened, and a note of pride crept into his voice.

'Yes I did, that was me, Barney Williams, Ammunition Inspectorate Division. That machine was to make floating boxes for the Japanese invasion. I didn't work with it much. Not a day off sick, you know, not a day off sick. Oh. Here comes the shouty man. Goodbye.'

"The shouty man" was Lethbridge-Stewart, who looked pleased with himself, his command and the whole operation.

'Well done, Walmsley! Not a man lost, and the hostage rescued. I understand from what Williams told me that the War Office had a plastic production line set up underground here in the early forties.'

'Yes, sir – actually, no. Barney said it was "Bakerlight" rather than plastic. Seems that there was a plan to make floating boxes – for the Japanese invasion. I suppose he might mean flotation chambers. No idea what Bakerlight is.'

His moustache bristled slightly.

'I grew up, Lieutenant, listening to Radio Luxembourg on a _bakelite_ radio. "Bakelite". Early form of plastic. Rotten luck that Nestene sphere ended up in close proximity to a plastic-creating machine, eh? Now, get yourself into a Landrover and back to Aylesbury on the double. I want a report on this operation by twenty-two hundred hours. Oh, and Lieutenant?'

'Yes, sir?' and I paused before marching off – actually slouching off would be nearer the truth, given my aches and pains.

'Get the MO to see you straight away at HQ.'

Nosiness is my greatest sin. In a top-secret organisation such as UNIT nosiness is a disadvantage. I persevered over several months, however, worrying about all those Autons who might be loose in Leek Wootton's levels and gradually digging themselves out. On my next trip out there the entire area lay behind ten foot fences topped with barbed wire. Not that there was a mine to examine any longer. The Royal Engineers were brought in by the Brigadier, who by rumour knew exactly how to deal with enemies who lurked in tunnel systems. The Sappers blasted camouflets – sub-surface caverns created by explosives – which were filled with napalm and detonated downwards into the upper mine level, creating fires that burned for forty-eight hours. Then the RAF delivered seventy-five tons of obsolete ordnance to Leek Wootton, which the Sappers carefully placed around the perimeter of the mine and set off all at once. Leek Wootton mine is now merely a large depression where the various underground levels collapsed one on top of each other.

The MO at Aylesbury is the jolly-hockey-sticks Harry Sullivan, who actually seemed to know what he was about when he examined me, tutting to himself.

'Let's tally it up, shall we?' he told me, curling his stethoscope up into one of the pockets of his white coat. 'Take a seat. You have pulled several muscles in your back, severe contusion in the neck muscles, three fractured ribs, puncture wounds to your upper left chest and back, smoke inhalation, a perforated eardrum and a pulled tendon in your left leg. What on earth have you been up to? I would have said lifting lorries for sport.'

I explained.

'Oh yes?' he replied, not impressed in medical terms. 'A heavy machine gun. Don't do it again. Very silly.'

'I don't plan to make a habit of it,' I muttered.

'This is a prescription for painkillers, this is one for steroids and this chit is for light duties until signed-off by myself. The orderley will bind up your chest.'

Like all significant episodes, this one had repercussions. From being known as that-bloke-who-chatted-with fish-men, my nickname changed to "Big John". Nick Munroe expressed huge amusement in recounting this to me. Private Embury even apologised for calling me "fat" in the tower at Maiden's Point.

The Brigadier called me in for a formal review of the operation, dubbed ATHLETE. To my chagrin he relegated it to a footnote amongst UNIT UK operations – the security of the country wasn't threatened, let alone the world. Nor even Birmingham.

'Don't worry, John!' he laughed, seeing me out. 'We can't save the world every day.'

As usual, Nick got the last laugh in. Weeks later he rang my room, where I was typing up transport details.

'Hey, come and see what film's on – you'll love it!'

I went down to the Officers Lounge, where Nick and a bottle of claret were watching TV. The set showed some black and white film with Gary Cooper.

'"Lives of a Bengal Lancer",' explained Nick. Then he hooted with laughter. 'Look! Watch this!'

Exasperatedly I looked, then looked closer still. Our Hero, Coop, was hefting about a Vickers heavy machine gun, plus tripod, and firing it. Ridiculous –

Oh well. Real life is sometimes stranger than fiction.


	10. Chapter 10

**Part Ten: Once More Unto the Breach**

Feeling less than sprightly, I checked my reflection in the mirror on the wardrobe in my room. Smart enough, as you'd expect an infantry officer to be. The tie might be too much, too formal, which didn't especially worry me – it could be removed if need be, and not having one in London would mean a detour to buy one. Waste of time and money. Struggling slightly, I pulled my jacket on; the muscles in my back protested, and my healing ribs joined in out of sympathy.

A loud rapping sounded from the door.

'Come in, it's not locked.'

Nick Munroe, also in civvies, stuck his head round the door to sneer at my outfit.

'Is that the best you can do? You look like a sack of coal in a suit. Taken you ages, too.'

Was I obliged to take along my pistol? The streets of London hardly teemed with monsters. If I carried it then I'd need my UNIT identification, yet another thing to worry about carrying or losing.

'Some of us are nursing the wounds of recent combat, Lieutenant Munroe, which makes donning a jacket a travail.'

He winced in annoyance, having missed the close combat that resulted in my being the worse for wear.

'Are you taking Bertie along?' I enquired.

'No fear! A pistol might cramp my style with the lady Liz – oh, what _now_!'

His exasperation stemmed from my taking the jacket off, getting both pistol and shoulder harness from my cabinet and struggling into the fashion accessory. One of us at least had better be armed; the Brig might not appreciate his officers going unarmed because of a pretty face.

Whilst we walked off Nick got the money-look about his countenance.

'What you need, for speed and convenience, is one of those American clip-on holsters. Dirty Harry-style. Clip them on the belt above your bum, nobody's any the wiser. It would save you struggling to get that harness on.'

We clattered down the stairs and signed out at the Guard Room.

'How much would this model of efficiency cost?'

Nick shrugged.

'That I can't say. Need to contact the Americans, see what they say, mark it up five hundred per cent.'

'Chiseller!'

'That's with the best-friend's discount.'

Having drawn the short straw, I drove into London. Not only that, I grossly abused my status as an officer in UNIT with full and proper ID and parked in the underground car park at the London office, in Kensington.

'Free, guaranteed parking at the weekend. Makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it?' quipped Nick.

Back in the open air, strolling along the London streets in occasional sunshine, mixing with the great and blissfully ignorant British public, I felt that being in UNIT actually meant something worthwhile if all this around me remained safe.

There was a worm in the bud, still.

'This mystery woman who's coming with Liz Shaw. How come I'm not being told about her?'

Call me suspicious. You can't let Munroe stray too far out of your sight or he'll get up to jinks. High or low, still jinks.

'I don't know, Liz would't say. No, honestly I don't!' he claimed, laughing at me.

'If it turns out to be her mum, Harry Sullivan will need a street map just to find your body parts.'

'Ooh, there speaks a man afraid. Really, I have no idea who it is. Liz just said she – this mystery gal – is keen to meet you.'

'Oh, good taste then.'

'More like shockingly naive. Come on, let's hail a cab, we'll be late.'

Late is a matter of definition, and if we got there first then we weren't late. Our arrangement was to meet in Leicester Square, by the fountain. At that time of the morning there shouldn't be too many crowds, nor were there. Nick and I strolled in from the north side, and saw two ladies standing with their backs to us, watching the water spraying from the fountain. Liz I could identify in her big white hat, but not the other woman.

Nick gave them a big hello, prompting both to turn around, and the cheery smile on his face stuck fast.

For a couple of seconds I didn't recognise the brunette lady with a bob hairdo, until she smiled and nodded a greeting.

'Madame Valdupont!' said Nick in strained tones. 'What a surprise!'

'What a _pleasant_ surprise,' I managed, with the benefit of a few seconds to gather my wits. This was the severe, frosty and all-round fairly hostile Frenchwoman from Swaffham Prior? Sweeping on with the charm, I continued.

'A time to mention the Marne, perhaps, in memory of La Belle Alliance?'

Nick got me in the ribs for that. Personally I thought it wasn't bad for spur of the moment.

Liz got her introduction in first, acting the diplomat and peace-maker.

'Nick, please go and stand on the other side of the fountain. This is private. Don't worry and don't sulk, I won't be long.'

Puzzled and crestfallen, Nick strolled off to the other side of the playing fountain.

'I'm not going to put words in Marie's mouth, John. She can speak for herself, but what I would like is for both of you to start as if this was your first meeting on civilised terms. No more glowering, Marie, and no more nasty quips, John. Okay?' and she went tap-tapping away on her low heels.

'Gosh. Well. Sorry, I don't know what to say!' I blurted, embarassed. 'You looked so pretty I didn't recognise you at first. Liz didn't tell Nick who she was arriving with, and after our previous meetings – well, you might forgive me for not expecting you. He – er - I didn't even know your name.'

She looked very serious, which instantly made me worry; had I put my Size 12 foot in it again?

'You made me think very hard last time, when you said "big does not equal stupid" to Elizabeth. Remember?'

Vaguely. Nevertheless I nodded.

'Then Elizabeth scolds me, and tells me you were a graduate of politics. I felt ashamed of thinking you were big stupid English soldier.'

She sniffed. Oh Good God Above, I prayed, do not let her start to cry! A crying woman throws me utterly. I'd rather face down the Autons again than a weeping woman. Fortunately she carried on, dry-eyed.

'And then we are told you do battle with the Nestenes and suffer injury. I felt very bad, so Elizabeth says an apology is required, that I have to come with her to meet her admirer.'

There it was. She'd suffered an attack of conscience and came to apologise, with a bit of prompting from Liz. Naturally this made me cringe with shame at having upset her.

'Hey, I ought to be the one apologising here. A gentleman never embarasses a lady. You make me feel very small indeed, making an apology like that.'

With a flick of her head, she brightened immediately.

'Come! We are here for a good time, all four of us. No more sadness, I forbid it.' She linked her arm in mine and walked us round the fountain, where Nick had been taking advantage of the seclusion to romance Liz, the dirty dog.

'O there you are,' he commented. 'We've been getting on simply famously without you.'

'Don't lend him any money,' I warned Liz, who blinked in surprise before realising it was a joke.

'Enough joking,' announced Nick. 'Let's eat. I have worked up a decent appetite, which is not a thing to make fun of. Where do we repair to?'

A quick stroll up and down the square later, we settled for Vecchio's. Marie inspected everything on the menu before giving it a qualified nod, and then did the same for the wine. She sniffed the cork, swirled a mouthful around and gave a grudging nod to the waiter, who seemed both impressed and alarmed at such rigour. Everything arrived piping hot and the staff didn't lurk in hope of a tip.

The wine loosened tongues and manners; not a security issue because both women carried security ratings as high, if not higher, than Nick and I. By accident or intent we sat outside in a corner, against a hedge of potted plants and the outer window, well apart from any potential eavesdroppers. To my mild horror, Nick insisted on a highly-coloured account of the affair in Leek Wootton, accompanied by various ooh's and aah's from Liz and Marie.

'The lab got an outline of what happened there,' explained Liz. 'Including a running battle underground.' Marie shuddered. 'To go under the ground – no, I could not do that.'

'Yes, and I won't volunteer to do it again,' I firmly assured them. Nick frowned hugely in retrospective annoyance; given the chance he'd volunteer for duty underground, overground, anywhere at all, in a flash, that much was obvious. 'Nobody mentioned it much at the time, given that it was damn obvious, but if Nick hadn't shown up with his collection of expensive and noisy toys, I wouldn't be here. None of the section would.'

How do you like the spotlight being upon you! I said to myself. Seeing Lieutenant Munroe visibly brighten under the flattery, I could tell he liked it no end. Show-off.

'Will you get a medal?' asked Liz of me, in all innocence. Nick nearly choked on his coffee, probably not having considered the possibility.

'Oh, no, not the slightest chance of that. The Brigadier told me the whole thing was a comparatively minor affair, not worth making a fuss about, and I also put a civilian at risk. Barney. The chap who guided us in the mine.'

Nick chimed in to take the seriousness out of things.

'I say the chap who supplied all that fancy hardware, including a vehicle-mounted flamethrower with two hundred gallons of napalm, that chap, _he's_ the one who deserves a medal.'

'Who is that?' asked Marie, not seeing the punchline.

'Me!' chortled Nick, nibbling on his Amaretto wafer. Liz punched him on the forearm in retaliation. He got up and excused himself for a call of nature, followed by Marie.

'Sorry. It is the wine and coffee together.'

Liz waited until they were both out of earshot.

'Just be careful with Marie. She's feeling rather vulnerable.'

'You be careful with Nick Munroe,' I warned. 'He's feeling rather frisky.' That made her smile.

'I'm a grown woman, thank you, and quite capable of looking after myself.'

'So is Marie, I take it.' Her expression turned serious again.

'Yes, but she's just gone through a nasty divorce. Knocked her sense of self-confidence pretty badly.'

For a second I got an insight into Marie Valdupont – hiding away from the world, burying herself in her work, avoiding any commitment. Liz finished talking.

'I'm trying to get her to open up a bit, stop hiding away. She's lonely and won't admit it. So, please treat her with consideration.'

A silent nod indicated my thoughtful approval. The solemn moment was shattered by Nick strolling back to us, announcing that he'd paid the bill himself, that he wouldn't tell us how much it came to and yah booh to you too. I took the wind out of his sails by threatening to use his first name.

'Your real first name. The one you were christened with,' I explained, his face falling like a souffle.

'There are rules in the Geneva Convention about that, you know,' he muttered.

When Marie returned we all went for a stroll, ending up in Trafalgar Square. I flinched a little at the statue of Nelson, recalling the one-eyed bugger's finest moment.

'Sorry,' I apologised to Marie. 'Bringing you here.' She looked slightly puzzled, as did Liz.

'Navy,' explained Nick, quicker off the mark at lying that me. 'Those denim-clad rascals. You know – rum, sodomy and the lash.'

'No. You are meaning Napoleon and Trafalgar,' declared Marie, rolling her "r's" with relish.

Pretty sharp. Still, she wouldn't be a visting professor if she wasn't clever.

'Allow me,' I said. 'I shall pour oil upon the troubled waters. Actually ice cream, but with same effect.'

Off I toddled to the ice cream van on the opposite side of the column. The elderly chap with a moustache who served looked over my shoulder several times.

'Is that your bird? I think you ought to get back to her, mate. She's having a pretty hard time of it.'

Nick and Liz had vanished whilst I walked to the ice-cream van. During my absence several skinheaded morons took it upon themselves to harrass Marie. I don't know where they came from, but they danced around a worried-looking Marie, hurling insults in Cockney patois that even I found hard to follow, even daring to push and grope her.

'Are we finished?' I called, loudly, whilst still distant. One or two of the skinheads paused to look at me. They didn't seem worried. A man carrying ice-cream can't be a threat to anyone.

' 'scuse me,' I said, pushing between those who blocked Marie from me. They gave way only reluctantly. Marie grasped my arm immediately.

'Let us go,' she said. That would have been the sensible thing to do. Unfortunately one of the folically-desolate morons circling us took offence at this.

'You what? Leaving so soon?' he leered. 'Ah come on dahling give you a fag for a bl- ' and he laid a hand on Marie's arm.

You can't sigh on paper, can you? If it were possible, at this point I would sigh. My Temper Gets The Better Of Me, Part #126. I delivered a right uppercut that laid Mr Folically-Challenged cold at our feet two seconds after he put his hand on Marie. Grasping my right fist with my left palm, I hit the man behind with my right elbow, creating a nasty cracking sound as his nose broke. He fell to the floor yelping, yelping and bleeding.

The three other skinheads piled in. More fool they. I'm not a technically skilled boxer, I don't have the lightness of foot, the grace or the manouvrability required. However to compensate I do have the ability to soak up a lot of punishment, a howitzer of a right hand and a punch that leaves opponents dead on the floor.

The last crop-headed swine still standing grimaced furiously at me, then howled in anguish as a stout boot impacted upon his private collection of family architecture from behind. He fell to the floor clutching his unmentionables as Nick Munroe loomed over him, looking left and right.

'Bugger me!' he said, sounding impressed. 'Five to one and you got four of them!' He carefully trod on the collapsed skinhead's throat. 'And you can stop whining, Kojak.'

Liz looked on the scene with shock and alarm. She was instrumental in moving us away, to Regent Square Station, where we got the Tube and travelled further out.

'I can't believe you were so stupid as to attack those men!' she scolded me. I hung my head in shame. 'What if they'd had knives?'

'Then they'd be dead,' said Nick, deadpan. 'John is carrying Bertie Browning, as per standing orders.'

That stopped Liz for a few seconds. Being a woman, however, she simply had to start up again.

'And why did you start punching them!'

'mumble push mumble Marie mutter mutter arm grumble whitter insult,' I replied, grievously embarassed.

'It is true!' added Marie. 'They were saying horrible things and touching me.' To my profound surprise, she threaded her arms around my right bicep and hugged me. 'But my brave Eenglish soldier came to the rescue.'

'Oh,' said Liz, equally surprised and silenced. Nick looked at the crimson blush upon my cheeks and snickered.

'Got any muffins? We could toast them on his face!'

'You leave him alone! He is _une gentil parfait knight_!' scolded Marie.

Nick and I got back to Aylesbury by twenty hundred hours. My knuckles were skinned and my already protesting back and ribs let me know that a punch-up was not conducive to healing.

'So you've got a return date?' asked an unusually thoughtful Nick when we signed in at the Guard Room.

'When I get another forty-eight hour pass. I think she likes me.'

'I think you like _her_. She is a curvy little number out of her lab coat.'

'What about Liz?' I asked as we climbed up the stairs to the officer's quarters. Nick frowned and harrumphed.

'Not really interested in me. No, all she could ask about was that wierdo Doctor Smith. Embarassing. My charm must be wearing out.' He stopped at the door to his room and pointed at me.

'Liz said Marie really does like you, matey. Funny how opinions change, hey? And I'll ask about a bum-holster tomorrow.'

Okay, I'm a man. Knowing that an attractive and intelligent woman liked me put a spring in my step. This on-top-of-the-world feeling lasted all of five minutes until I got a phone call from the Duty Officer, put through to my room.

'Lieutenant Walmsley? I need you in the Guard Room immediately.'

I went back downstairs to the Guard Room where Captain Crichton and a Military Police officer were chatting. Private Bradpiece sat at the desk, carefully not paying attention.

'Ah, there you are, Walmsley. Take a chair, please. This is Captain Foster of the Provosts. He has a few questions to ask you. It seems there was an incident in London today.'

Genuine bewilderment gave my initial reaction a convincing air.

'Bloody hell sir! I was there all day with Nick – ah, with Lieutenant Munroe, sir. We didn't witness anything.'

Captain Foster, a sandy-haired man of middle-age with an air of introspection, looked hard at me, decided I wasn't taking the mickey and carried on.

'Not a UNIT kind of "incident", Lieutenant. We got word from the civil police that five members of the public had been taken to hospital after enduring an assault by - and I quote - "twenty or thirty off-duty soldiers in civilian clothing". Happened in Trafalgar Square.'

Whoopsy-daisy. The five skinheads punched into sweet oblivion. Captain Crichton looked at me with extremely keen eyes while Captain Foster carried on.

'Now, I know these characters are talking complete nonsense because there haven't been more than five off-duty squaddies in the whole of London today. Besides, a witness to the event stated that there were only two people doing the assaulting, not thirty, or even twenty.'

That would be the ice-cream salesman.

Captain Crichton put a fatherly arm around my shoulder.

'Captain Foster, I think I'd better inform the lieutenant of the legal implications of what happened here.' He pulled me over to a corner as the provost nodded sagely and turned to face the lobby.

'John, what the hell happened!' asked Crichton. I explained, and he whistled in appreciation. 'Five to one, eh. No wonder they lied through their teeth – mostly missing now, I understand – about getting a good hiding. Okay, leave this to me.'

We returned to face Captain Foster.

'_Cover your knuckles_,' mouthed Private Bradpiece to me, pointing at the bruises and bloodstains. Lieutenant Walmsley promptly adopted a respectful hands-behind-back-at-ease stance.

'Well, it seems that the Lieutenant can't possibly have been involved. He was dining in Leicester Square at the time of the incident,' said Crichton. Captain Foster nodded. 'And the incident appeared to involve harrassment of a foreign national.' Captain Foster frowned and tutted. 'A foreign national in the service of HM Government, moreover.' Captain Foster shook his head in disbelief. 'And a woman, to boot.' Captain Foster looked very angry.

'Well,' he replied. 'About what I reckoned to be the case. It seems that the mysterious assailants did UNIT and the UK a good turn – _this_ time. Were such an event to happen again, I feel sure that the RMP would have to pursue it relentlessly.'

'Absolutely, sir,' I chimed in. The matter didn't end there, of course. No, the Brig got involved. According to his lights, anyone able to punch out four opponents simultaneously had to go on the Close Protection Course for bodyguards.

'I understand that the honour of a lady and UNIT was involved,' he mentioned, off-handedly whilst making out travel orders. 'I trust both were defended.' And then I got sent to the CQBH in Wales.

I think matters would have been less complicated if I'd just shot the skinheaded swine.


	11. Chapter 11

UNIT UK 11: A Clean Sweep

Not everything we did at UNIT consisted of violent displays of armed action. Perhaps the following will illustrate.

The word was out at Aylesbury – all officers to report to the gym, soonest. Those on detached duty would be contacted by telephone by the Duty Officer, who happened to be Nick Munroe. He had to start ringing half an hour before the meeting commenced, collating replies on a clipboard.

I was almost late, having been detained in the vehicle-park by the fitters, who were going over a Scorpion light tank acquired from the Blues and Royals. It had twelve thousand miles on the clock and needed a complete overhaul before I'd even think of signing the raft of paperwork that went with it.

So, I slunk into the gym at the back, alongside Nick, now without his clipboard. The Brig stood at the front, Captain Yates at his side, and gave us all the beady eye.

'Munroe, Walmsley, you're both excused. Fall out.'

Eh?

'Not sure what all that was about,' complained Nick, in his room a few minutes later. 'Dash of malt?'

'No thank you, I need my wits about me this afternoon. The MOD are trying it on with a clapped-out tank, and the fitters are trying it on by not working quickly enough.'

Nick took a healthy swill of his whisky and looked musingly at me.

'The phone calls I made were all about volunteering for undercover work. Why d'you think you and I aren't acceptable? In your case it might be the fetchingly bucolic accent you have, but I speak the Queen's English impeccable, like.'

Pause for thought. I looked around Nick's room, full of boxes and crates and packets of cigarettes. The –

'Undercover work? Ah, the mist begins to lift.'

He set-to on a large taped cardboard box, which clinked in an interesting fashion. Probably brandy or whisky.

'Does it now. Come on, you overweight Lancashire pudding, tell me.'

'Join the dots, you intellectual sloth. Do you really think I can blend into the background in undercover work?'

I speak the truth. Standing six feet six and weighing eighteen stone, I'm hard to miss.

'What about me!' replied Nick. He looks like a seedier version of Leslie Phillips, with freckles. 'Lithe as a ferret.'

'And scented the same. Where do you have relatives who might recognise you and blow your cover?'

'Oho. Beautiful Belfast. Ah! Undercover work – in Ulster?' he finished, puzzled.

That probably explained the absence of Captain March, our resident chameleon. I'd once threatened him with a tyre lever, when he'd been in disguise as a tramp. We'd not seen him for a couple of weeks.

Not that I knew anything more. The only official mention of Ulster and UNIT had occurred at my induction, where Major Hunter looked horrified when he mistakenly believed I knew more than I did.

I silently thanked not getting sent back to Ulster, having done a tour there with the Queen's Lancs. Nick looked cross and relieved simultaneously. I knew he was desperate to get into action and prove himself, and he secretly envied me my various experiences with UNIT – at Maiden's Point, at Leek Wootton and of course most recently in Russia. Sorry, the Soviet Union.

'Look, why did you volunteer for UNIT if you wanted to do deeds of derring-do? You could be pounding the streets of Belfast. Gun battles at the Divis Flats, patrolling at Crossmaglen. All adrenaline-inducing stuff.'

A silent sneer and sip of whisky was my response.

'There's no glamour in the Short Strand, and there are simply no amenities for a well-heeled young officer in the countryside.'

I left him to fulminate, or more properly marinate, and went back to the well-used Scorpion, convinced that the fitters would have had a half-hour fag break whilst I was gone.

After an intensive chivvying session to explain to the UNIT fitters that my time was precious, delivered at short range and high volume, I retired to the Battalion Transport office and began to check and complete the paperwork for the Scorpion.

En route to the mess, Corporal Higgins stopped me.

'Just thought you might like to know, sir, Captain Yates might be after you.'

This worried me. Mike Yates never looked at me without seeming to have dark thoughts amind.

'After me? Battalion transport issues?'

Higgins looked at me shrewdly.

'Not sure about that, sir. He happened to spot that Scorpion out on the tarmac and was looking at it. Then he said "Of course! Walmsley!" and left in a hurry.'

Whoops.

The jigsaw pieces fell together, and the pattern they made didn't look too charming. Mike Yates, ex-King's Dragoon Guards, who were a reconaissance formation that drove Scorpion light tanks. Tanks like the one out on the tarmac, which had jogged his memory, and mine.

Luck was with me. The Brig sent a summons, get to his office soonest. I did so, and discovered an opportunity to avoid Captain Yates for a while.

'Take a seat, John. We have a slight problem. As you're aware, we have an urgent request for officer volunteers cleared to high level to undertake covert work. One of the volunteers is from Project Broom. That leaves Project Broom one officer short, while we have a surplus here at Aylesbury of two. Yourself and Nick Munroe.'

'I'm off to Project Broom?'

'Only on attachment. This flap in Ulster is a short-tem thing, it'll blow over in a few weeks, at the most. Whilst it's on, I'd like you and Munroe to cover the absent officer.'

Fair enough. There was the matter of my company and the Battalion Transport Officer post.

'Captain Yates can substitute for you in both capacities, John. Besides, your senior NCO is Tom Horrigan, correct? Officer-candidate material. A shame we'll lose him on rotation once his time here's up. Captain Yates won't have much extra to do.'

Smart salute from me, depart to room quick smart, pack bag. Nick rang and offered to drive, if I'd read the briefing documents provided for us en route.

'Deal,' I replied. 'Where is Project Broom based, anyway?'

'Hathern Wood, off the M1. In the middle of a triangle formed of Leicester, Nottingham and Derby.'

I learned later that the placing was deliberate, right next to the M1 for rapid access to the motorway network, and near the East Midlands Airport if travel further afield were needed.

Nick swanned us north onto the M1 in his dad's Bentley whilst I looked at the set of documents given under seal.

' "Project Broom Familiarisation Set 3' " I read, ripping open the cover and breaking the seal ' "FAO Officers and Other Ranks on permanent assignment or detatched duty to Project Broom". That's us, then. Page one. Once upon a time – okay, okay,' I said, feeling Nick's gaze shift from road to passenger. ' "Primary Objective: to remove any physical artefacts that remain after conclusion of an action. Secondary Objective: to present UNIT-vetted information to the media and track dispersion of information post-event. Third Objective: to pro-actively intercept, prevent, censor and otherwise prevent the proliferation of non UNIT-vetted information." So we act as bin-men and censors. Not much glamour in that.'

Nick harumphed in reply. We'd been ordered not to take small-arms with us, which hinted that the job would be pushing pens and shuffling paper. Oh dear, no chance for Nick to shine.

'It'll take about an hour to get there,' he informed me, putting the radio on and selecting the dismal daytime warblings of Radio One. 'Keep on reading. So far I've done all the work today.'

Scanning the closely-typed print, I tried to paraphrase.

'Well, the unit is based at Hathern Wood. They have a set of covert lorries and other vehicles used to get to and from the scene of an action, all air-portable. A computer that is linked in to the one at Kensington, blah blah blah, gets them the latest information. Hot line to the Home Secretary and the Brig and one to Geneva. Draws occasionally on the services of external civilian experts also accredited at high level clearance – oh, they mean people like Liz Shaw.'

'And Marie Valdupont,' added Nick, slyly, referring to the lady currently the light of my life.

'Moving swiftly along, Driver Munroe, they can issue D-notices on spec, pull stories from the BBC or ITV at a moments notice and have ready-prepared cover stories for prospective actions. For examples, see the Appendix, - let's see, what's here – ah! stories like the LSD attack on London that required a large-scale evacuation, because people claimed to be seeing killer shop window dummies.'

'The Autons.'

'Too right. So Project Broom got rid of the bits and made up a story about terrorists poisoning the water supply, it says here. Press told to co-operate, editors threatened, third estate knuckles under.'

'What about all the dead people?'

I flipped back and forwards.

'Dunno. Nothing about them in here. "Death by misadventure", maybe, or "Murdered by person or persons unknown." There's something here about the Big Freeze, too.'

'Boring. We know what really happened. Any gen about that do in Wales?'

No there wasn't. Probably too recent for any inclusion in the document. I read on.

A set of procedures and policy instructions followed in the body of the text. Deadly dull stuff that Nick warded off with a wave of the hand.

'Forsooth, let us repair to that service station which looms on the horizon, brother Walmsley. I missed breakfast this morning and can suffer even a motorway meal.'

We got questioning glances, walking into the café area in full uniform. Perhaps it was a good thing we didn't have any weapons or people would have been even nosier. Discretion meant we sat over in a corner, away from other customers and Nick ate two trays of breakfast.

'Foul but filling,' he declared, lighting up an imported hand-rolled Turkish cigarette for show. 'I meant to say, Mike Yates was looking for you at Aylesbury. Had a particularly hard gleam in his eye.'

He was fishing. I stirred three sugar lumps into my tea and sighed.

'Yes, well, he would. His hard gleam will only soften when he gets me into deep hot water with the Brig.'

'He may find that harder than normal. Rumour has it that his name is pretty muddy at the moment. Let the side down in Wales. Court martial pending.'

Not for months did I discover that Captain Yates, stalwart UNIT officer, had held the Brig and the Doctor at gunpoint, programmed by a mad computer to kill them both until the Doctor pulled a rabbit out of his hat. In reality a blue crystal from outer space, but the effect was the same.

'I always saw him as a bit of a milksop. What's he got against you?'

'I blew up his tank.'

Nick's eyes got big as saucers.

'Wow, no wonder he's ticked-off with you.'

'While he was in it.'

Nick leaned back in his seat and looked at me through narrowed eyes.

'That trip to Soviet Russia didn't addle your bourgeios wits, did it?'

'I also destroyed his crate of twenty-year old malts and wines.'

'Bloody hell! You don't do things by halves, do you, young Walmsley!'

'It was before either of us were in UNIT, _and_ it was an accident.'

'You should tell the MoD. "I can brew-up tanks by accident, imagine what I can do with a bit of deliberate hostile intent." Good God, back home a man who destroys bottles of malt – well, the verdict's not murder, it's justifiable homicide.'

The meal came to a sullen end and we made our way back North again, for the shorter leg of the journey.

'I am going to get the truth of this out of you,' commented Nick when we turned off the motorway and down the leafy track to Project Broom HQ.

The track, on closer inspection, only seemed leafy, with lots of overhead cover from trees. The road itself was well-laid tarmac, with a camber and culverts and drains, built only recently by the look of it. Able to stand up to heavy-duty usage. The further along we drove, the bigger the trees became, until the road stood completely hidden under foliage. The Project Broom buildings, pre-fabs one and all, stacked up like Lego, lay behind a modest fence. There was only one sentry at the gate, lurking behind a sign proclaiming "UNIT Hathern". In accordance with the low-profile publicity policy of UNIT, you could have covered the sign with one hand.

Our sentry looked the Bentley over, perhaps thinking VIP's had arrived, only to find two junior officers inside. He checked the passes, rang elsewhere in the base and let us through.

'Head for the car park, sir, then go into the Reception Block.'

Nick's mobile family heirloom was easily the most impressive vehicle in the car park, which had a considerable array of civilian saloon cars, trucks, tankers, dump trucks and construction plant.

Reception Block was merely another pre-fab, all alpined exterior and scuffed lino flooring inside. Bright flourescent lights showed off the bargain-basement MoD furniture in unflattering contrast.

Behind the big desk, a bright young thing in uniform with blonde hair in a bob and nice white teeth gave us a cool professional smile. I could almost hear Nick's libido cranking into action.

'Lieutenant's Munroe and Walmsley reporting in as substitutes for your officer on detachment,' said Nick, saluting smartly. 'I am Lieutenant Munroe, whilst this inelegant sack of potatoes is Lieutenant Walmsley.'

The bright young thing snickered quietly. I disliked her at once.

'Corporal Jones!' came a female voice that rolled effortlessly around the pre-fab like a drum roll or an artillery salvo. Bright young thing immediately became busy with typing work. 'Are those carbons ready yet?' asked the female the voice was attached to, entering from a door in the office rear.

'Not yet Sergeant Windsor,' squeaked the bright young thing, hammering away at the keys. 'They are now,' she finished, passing the sheets to Sergeant Windsor.

Sergeant Windsor presented a formidable appearance. Six feet tall, a massive bust, dark hair scraped back into a bun, immaculate skirt, stockings, blouse, tie and piercing blue eyes. She had a large face that expressed no interest in either of us minor specimens of the military male. Nick, predictable coward that he is, froze in fear, leaving yours truly to carry on.

'Sergeant Windsor. Lieutenant Walmsley, UNIT HQ Aylesbury.' We exchanged stern salutes. 'Here as temporary replacement for your officer on detachment. Also present is Lieutenant Munroe, to the same purpose.'

Similar exchange of stern salutes. I wanted to get off on the right foot with Sergeant Windsor, so the next idea came as an unforeseen inspiration.

'Do we have quarters assigned for the duration?'

'Yes, Lieutenant Walmsley. I can have Corporal Jones show you there,' replied Sergeant Windsor in completely emotion-free response.

'Thank you. Just Lieutenant Munroe, for the moment. I'd like a familiarisation briefing first.'

Nick darted looks of death-ray intensity at me whilst he got his kit together. Tough. I outrank him thanks to seniority, and he got the chance to try it on with the blonde receptionist – Corporal Jones.

Sergeant Windsor led the way into her office, and indicated a wall-chart calendar, which had a single spike in the past month. I glanced around the room, which had lots of kit arranged in it, but which remained tidy. Very tidy.

'That's the only thing happened recently, the disappearing scientists. Now they've reappeared, we only have to maintain the cover story, that they were called away at short notice for important MoD work.'

'Nothing physical to deal with?'

'No, Lieutenant. Over here, in the secure filing, are the details of past clean-up operations. To read them you sign out the file in the log book, here.'

'How do you decide what and who to send out to an action?'

She pursed her lips.

'Discretionary, Lieutenant. Some of the covert vehicles in the park are specially converted to deal with particular threats, but otherwise we use our experience and the information sent through from UNIT at the scene.'

Recent memories rolled round my mind.

'What about Leek Wootton? Operation Athlete?'

She blinked in recognition at the official name given to the action.

'There was only one intact Auton left from that, sir. Not much to deal with. The RAF blew the whole mine to bits, so we didn't have to recover anything physical. The cover story needed more work.'

'What about the Auton fox-replica?'

For the first time since meeting Sergeant Windsor she showed emotion, even if it was only a slight frown.

'Oh yes, I'd forgotten about that. Encased in resin and sent to Swafham.'

That was Swafham Prior, the UNIT "black museum" of various bits and pieces and bad guys left on Planet Earth.

'Are your cover stories discretionary, too?'

'No, Lieutenant. Not completely. We have to co-ordinate with the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence, just to make sure our stories agree with their stories. There is also an outline of what suggestions might be applicable in certain circumstances.'

'Fine. Do you have a floorplan and staff roster?'

She did. The floorplan consisted of two A3 blueprints, which she said would be photocopied and delivered to my office. The staff roster was on her desk, a single sheet of typed names, and she promised to deliver that to my office also.

Despite her chilly exterior and lack of acknowledgement, there was no doubt in my mind that Sergeant Windsor managed her role here very competently. I've seen enough establishments that look fine but feel wrong to know.

'Okay. One other thing, Sergeant Windsor.'

She stopped and looked at me, once more emotionless.

'Lieutenant Munroe and I are here for a few weeks at most. To observe. Not to interfere.'

An expressionless Sergeant Windsor conducted me to my office, another pre-fab with nasty lighting and scuffed chairs.

Nick showed up five minutes later, looking bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

'Well, I've got a date. How did you fare with Sergeant Raving Lesbian?'

I threw the pencil sharpener at him.

For all his faults, which are many, Nick does have contacts throughout the armed forces, relatives, friends and ex-girlfriends. Whilst we were arranging our miscellania around the office of Captain Keane, I pondered the meat-and-potato issues of Project Broom, staring at the outlay of the site delivered by Corporal Jones.

'You hold the fort here. I am going on a personal reconaissance,' I told Nick. 'And while I'm gone, perhaps you could pull a few strings with your contacts in Whitehall and –'

'Already in motion, Oh Mighty Leader,' replied Nick, prising open a locked drawer with a screwdriver. 'I've got Major Hunter on the case. It'll cost me a bottle of the family's finest next we meet, mind.'

'Bill me. See you in half an hour.'

The air outside had a spring freshness to it that was invigorating after the dingy office. From here there were trees in all directions, a spreading green canopy with trilling birds, clicking insects and sticky buds. A hell of a lot nicer than the vehicle park and garages at Aylesbury. I clattered down the stairs from the upper cabin, looking in at the uniformed staff doing clerical work in the lower office, the one with "UNIT Vetted Information Dispersal" on the door.

They all looked up with a degree of alarm when I abruptly appeared in the doorway.

'As you were! Lieutenant Walmsley on detached duty, covering for Captain Keane,' I explained, looking around. 'Carry on.'

They did, not bothering much when I went noseying around the pre-fab, which is the sign of a clear conscience.

Next on the visit list was the Computer Block, which consisted of three OR's sitting writing out esoteric programming language. I gave them a knowing look and nod, then carried on elsewhere. Elsewhere led to the Secure Bulk Storage pre-fab. This had files on everything Project Broom had ever worked on, in considerably more detail than the precis to be found in Sergeant Windsor's office, and composed of various different formats.

There were other pre-fabs to check but I concentrated on Blocks 7 and 8. "Officers on Advisory Duty" and "Civilian Advisory HLC".

A tall, sandy-haired officer in RAF blue with lots of freckles but little hair was intently staring at a television monitor in the communal area of Block 7.

'You're not another artefact, are you?' he asked me with distracting directness.

'What makes an artefact?' I replied.

'Oh, if you can ask that then you aren't one. No self-awareness, you see.'

I didn't see, not at all. Years of training enabled me to project an air of knowing everything whilst being completely in the dark.

''From the time-shift effect, you know. The recent case, the missing scientists.'

Sergeant Windsor mentioned that. Grim affirmative nod from Lieutentant Walmsley.

'I'm Lieutenant Walmsley, on attachment whilst Captain Keane is out of the way.'

He looked up at me as if for the first time.

'Oh. Oh, yes, Sergeant Windsor did tell me there'd be a replacement coming in. I'm Farrell, Wing Commander Farrell. Specialisms rocketry and ballistics.'

Not to mention behaving like a complete loon. It would be churlish of me to mention that the RAF's inauguration date is April the First? Farrell was right at home in Hathern.

'Very good, Flight Commander. I shall be moving on right now.'

He waved me out, whilst I cast a weather eye over my shoulder. Block 8 was empty, unlit and locked – no civilians at Proj Broom for the moment. Guess we'd have to do with Farrell as Loon in Residence. The UNIT quarters were a pre-fab for Other Ranks and one for Officers, where Nick had stowed his kit already.

By the time I got back to the office after completing a stroll around the perimeter fence and exchanging words with the sentry, Nick had done his phoning round, and had a smug expression on his face.

'I have the information you require, Oh mighty leader. I rang Cousin Hunter and he came up with the goods.'

'Which are?'

'Not so fast! A little trading of information can now take place.'

With a little bad grace, the trading of information did indeed take place. I explained about the live-fire exercise on the Suffield Ranges in Canada.

My platoon had been plodding alongside a muddy track, wet, tired, filthy and looking forward to a wet and a wad. Hey presto, a troop of Scorpions came bowling along the track, captain's all sticking their heads out of the turrets. They drove at speed past us into a thirty yard mud puddle that sprayed sideways and swamped the entire platoon. Three times, and laughing at us. The platoon's language was, predictably, pretty colourful. Sergeant Roke remained silent, before taking me aside and mentioning that the troop was from the King's Dragoon Guards, and he'd got their registration numbers.

Quick-thinking chap, Sergeant Roke. Next day we were practicing armour-infantry co-operation and surprise surprise, those same bloody Scorpions were deployed a couple of hundred yards to our front. I waited until the firing flag went up, then ordered the Jimpy section to put down fifty rounds suppressing fire, right on top of the tanks. The crews were all buttoned-up inside, but the storage bins on the rear were nice and vulnerable.

Sadly for him, Captain Michael Yates, commanding "Tetrarch", didn't like leaving his fine wines and whiskies where thieving squaddies might lay their hands upon them. So he put them in the storage bin at the rear of "Tetrarch", where they were hit by half a dozen machine gun rounds and smashed into splinters. The whisky, pints and pints of it, drained out onto the engine deck and into the engine, set alight by a tracer round. The engine caught fire. The captain, livid with rage, had to watch his tank brew-up after he and his crew abandoned it. All he knew was that an infantry section with a large officer in charge had done-in his booze and his chariot. Presumably after seeing the Scorpion at Aylesbury he'd made the connection.

By the time I finished this sorry tale, Nick was speechless with laughter. I scowled back at him for his lack of sympathy for a brother officer.

'Okay, now my side,' he finally managed, reading from a sheet in front of him. "Elaine Patricia Windsor, Sergeant, Queen Alexander's Royal Army Nursing Corps. Awarded Queen's Gallantry Medal for performing emergency tracheotomy on a private of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, wounded in a bomb attack in Ulster witter witter. Despite being attacked by nail and petrol bombs and being injured herself, Sergeant Windsor remained with the patient until he reached hospital. The receiving surgeon stated that the injured man would have died long before, blah blah. Mentioned in Despatches for rescuing two Catholic children from a burning house under attack from a Loyalist mob. Sergeant Windsor suffered third degree burns and the effects of smoke inhalation but continued to defend the children until a foot patrol arrived, etcetera, etcetera." The Cousin told me she defended her nippers by decking the ringleader and breaking his jaw.'

My respect for the formidable-looking Sergeant increased. She didn't wear the ribbon award, which is a sign of modesty. She appeared to punch as efficiently as she ran Proj Broom. And she put her life on the line for patients.

'Breaking his jaw,' I muttered. 'He got off lightly.'

Nick heard me mumbling.

'Yes, John, if it were you then you'd have stamped on his head a few times for good measure. You have a bit of a temper, you know.'

He had a point. In my little Soviet excursion I'd flown into a killing rage when Russian children were threatened. Just one of the things I'd discovered about myself that took getting used to.

'After having a thorough snoop around Proj Broom, Lieutenant Munroe, I don't see us having much to do here. Sergeant Windsor seems to run things behind the scenes pretty effectively.'

'You don't fancy her, do you? Because I can guarantee she's a raving lesbian, you know.'

That Nick Munroe. No sense of tact or subtlety.

For a whole day afterwards Nick and I dealt with endless sheets of paper, which required signing, reading, approving, forwarding or censoring. I quite enjoyed killing a story in the Sunday Express about "Evil Alien Invaders – From _Mars_!", and then censoring most of the sense out of an article by John Pilger on "UN Spy Satellites"; so censored in fact that the New Statesman decided not to run it at all. None of this intellectual chess-playing impressed Nick, who visibly fretted over the paper-pushing we did in lieu of dashing around with guns.

As an officer with intelligence, tact and subtlety, I explained to Nick why I'd checked up so diligently on Sergeant Windsor. She, given her undoubtedly ability and experience, would be checking up on us. Nick did not take this well. There must be a whole cemetery's-worth of skeletons in his closet.

Part of that was proved when we were summoned to a Case Conference in the specially constructed Meeting Room, two pre-fabs joined side-to-side. Half a dozen of the Proj Broom staff were there, plus Major Hunter, who is Nick's cousin and the closest thing UNIT has to an official archivist and historian.

The meeting was fairly dull: a list of past operations UNIT had been involved in, with any potentially outstanding issues associated with them. The most recent one, that of the missing scientists, had been resolved quickly, without any media attention and without any physical remains to clear up, categorise or destroy. I was slightly surprised to hear that Operations Resolve and Merlin, involving the Great Intelligence and the Cybermen respectively, still had live-file status. I asked the Major about that.

'Ah. Good question. Operation Resolve, we still have occasional queries about – that happens when you evacuate a major city, Lieutenant. I dread the time we next have to do it, because it's an unbelievable pain in the arse.

'As for Operation Merlin, the Big Freeze affected half the Northern Hemisphere. I believe there are still insurance claims going through court about that. Anyway, it affected far too many people to not have repercussions later. Thanks to Project Broom, most media speculation about it is just that – idle speculation.'

That only left a look ahead through the Radio Times and the TV Times to see what might crop up in the next week. Net result – nothing.

Once the meeting had formally finished and the others had departed, with Sergeant Windsor slated to write up the minutes, Major Hunter directed a knowing glance at her.

'These two rascals aren't making trouble for you, are they, Sergeant?'

'Not at all, sir. In fact Lieutenant Munroe has exerted considerable energy alongside the office staff.'

I bit my cheek to avoid smiling. That would be Nick romancing Corporal Jones. The Sergeant didn't miss much.

'Indeed? How unlike him. All the same, these two bear watching. Do you know their nicknames at Aylesbury?'

Shake of head from an interested Sergeant Windsor, and both Nick and I paid verrrry close attention. We had nicknames, of course. Every squaddie who ever served has a nickname for his ruperts, but I didn't know what mine was.

' "Batterman and Robbing",' grinned the Major, clearly enjoying himself hugely. 'Walmsley here has a habit of pounding the punchbags in the gym until they split, to work off his vile temper. I think we're on the third one since you joined, hmm? And my younger relative here can get anything for you, guns, explosives, ammunition, or a twenty millimetre anti-aircraft gun, no questions asked.'

The sergeant nodded mutely, casting a knowing glance over her new superior officers.

'I had heard that they were something of a comedy duo, sir,' she riposted.

'Oh, they are that. Good job you two are only here for the short term, eh?'

'You know we're thirsting to get back into armed action, sir,' I said with staggering ingenuousness.

'Thirsting!' added Nick. Always egging the pudding, that lad.

After a few days I began to see the purpose and procedure behind Proj Broom. Nick, on the other hand, chafed visibly at having to shuffle paper instead of cards or seven six two's. I tried to explain that UNIT might send the Assault Platoon out to blam the bad guys into little bits, in an action lasting an hour, but Project Broom had to deal with the consequences for potentially years afterwards. The long game. Strategic overview.

'You sound like my cricket captain,' he said crossly, savagely signing his name in biro and ripping into the paper. 'And I never could stand the bugger. I always got bowled out early thanks to him.'

I narrowed my eyes, the better to look wise and perceptive, and waved my own biro at him.

'You ought to transfer, you know. The Paras or the Marines, they get sent in first to wherever there's a ruck. Or that other outfit, the SAS. Plenty of opportunity to end up glamourously dead with a posthumous VC.'

He wrinkled his nose.

'The Old Man wouldn't approve of them. No regimental history. Or not enough. For him, it has to date back to the Civil War or they're just upstart oiks.'

This was interesting. Nick never talked about his family, whom I nevertheless knew about. There was his father: The Old Man, a.k.a. Colonel Munroe (ret), Black Watch, Military Medal and Bar, who owned a distillery and exported malt to the grateful around the world. There was a younger sister and another couple of brothers, who were usually dismissed as "the clerk and the jerk".

Things might have developed further, with a bit more of the Munroe family background coming out, had a telephone call not come through to us. Nick pounced on the phone, desperate to avoid further mention of family or just desperate to see action.

'Yes? Yes, speaking. A what? Hang on, hang on – okay, repeat that. Yes. Location? Okay. Casualties? Yes I want details! Yes. Yes. Go on. Je – ahem, okay, right. Understood.'

Having finished scribbling, he looked up at me with glee.

'The game is afoot! That was Beresford, calling from the East coast. An Eden Incident, he said, with bodies galore, all rendered ghastly by the evil invader, which they have incidentally blasted to bits. Proj Broom needed there soonest.'

"Eden Incident" equated to an action involving – think Walmsley think – plants.

'Plants? People killed by plants?' My incredulity couldn't be masked.

Nick merely nodded, busy tidying up his yard-square mess of desk space.

'Too right, entirely parasitised by the growth, according to Captain Well-Spoken.'

My mind struggled with the picture of people standing still long enough to be killed by a rhododendron. I rang Sergeant Windsor, who hissed through her teeth at the news, and told me to – actually "requested" but it sounded like "told" – report to the vehicle park and Sections 27a and 27b.

Several hours later saw a team from Proj Broom arrive on the east coast, to the south-east of Grimsby. Flat country, with sand dunes. Our transport, being four-wheel drive and with skilled drivers, made it to the coast without trouble. The way there lay along progressively worse roads, from A to B to unmetalled tracks and then simply between sand-dunes.

I was a passenger in the lead transport, which appeared to the uninitiated to be a grubby petrol tanker from Vital Petroleum. I rode behind the driver, alongside a wild-haired young man reading a brick-thick book entitled "Titus Groan", the perv. The perv hadn't been introduced to me, so we both ignored each other in best polite English fashion.

The other vehicle, from rectangle 27b on the Hathern car park, appeared to be a flat-bed truck. Nick currently sat next to the driver, peering out of the window with all the enthusiasm of a child going to the seaside, which he was in a way.

Once we reached the taped-off section of the sands, both vehicles stopped and everyone dismounted. A khaki-clad figure atop the dunes beckoned us onward, to the Main Event.

Which turned out to be a sprawl of seaweed on the damp sands, at first glance. Pretty scorched seaweed, stinking to high heaven. Another pile of burnt green wrack lay a hundred yards further on, being watched by a couple of squaddies with flamethrowers.

Captain Beresford shouted a warning and what seemed like the whole Assault Platoon assembled to the rear of the flat bed truck. The driver started to mess around in the cab and the flat bed slowly tilted upwards on hydraulic rams, until it was vertical, then pivoted around by several feet and pointed to the first collection of seaweed. My driver handed me a pair of earplugs and waved to the other truck when I'd put them in.

Despite being well behind and to the left of the not-flat bed truck, my ears were assaulted by a sustained high-pitched screech. The lump of seaweed quivered and twitched, bladders popped, it oozed a slimey trickle of foam and then sat still. A similar treatment was meted out to the other seaweed clump. Captain Beresford gave our cab a wave.

The perv from my tanker opened up a locker and took out a noddy suit, which he carefully donned, then picked up a metal suitcase and walked over to the first sprawl of seaweed.

Why do you need an NBC protective suit to look at kelp?

When the man with the expensive suit rolled the seaweed over, it didn't move the way a clump of seaweed ought to. In fact there was an unpleasant suggestion that the stuff lay over a human being. "Entirely parasitised", Nick had said.

Ah. Hence the suit. Mister Perv poked around the seaweed, moved on to the second clump and checked that over, then came back to the truck and removed the suit. His face was dead-white, and his hands shook a little putting the case back in it's locker.

'Both certified dead,' he told Captain Beresford, before climbing back into the cab and taking a good pull at a hip-flask.

'What's going on here, sir?' I asked, nosey as usual. The Captain did a double-take.

'Oh, hello John, didn't realise you'd be out here. Two divers from one of the rigs in the Ekofisk field. Well, they _were_ two divers, before the weed got into them.'

'Before – you mean that seaweed took them over!'

He nodded and sighed.

'Yes, the poor buggers. It's a parasite, you see. Normally it sits on the bottom of the North Sea not doing anything, but if a big storm blows up it can rise to the surface. The divers are all warned to keep well clear of it but something went wrong here. The rig notified us of two men missing, and weed seen in the area, so we plotted their likely landfall.'

Then tackled them with flamethrowers. Made sense, you can't shoot a clump of weed very effectively.

'And that banshee device – does that kill them?'

The Captain nodded.

'It's something the Doctor gimmicked up for us. He seems to know plenty about this parasitical weed. You might care to ask him about it, he seems on good terms with you.'

The wild-haired perv climbed down from the cab, giving off a gentle whiff of brandy.

'Sorry. I needed that. It's not easy doing a post mortem on the body when there's not much body left. Bloody awful stuff.'

I take it he meant the weed, not the brandy. "Post mortem" and his activity implied he was a doctor.

'I would have thought a marine botanist would be more suited to the job,' I began.

He glared at me.

'Yes, they would, but they're in short supply at short notice, so I have to make do.'

Beresford wagged a finger.

'Keep your hair on, Doctor. You may not be here because you want to, but you ought to make the best of it.'

'Sorry. Bloody hell, what a way to get my licence back!' Several deep breaths later, he rolled his eyes and spoke in a more formal manner. 'Right, Captain. All vital signs are extinct. You may destroy the remains.'

The destruction devolved upon Nick and his driver, who piped fuel from the Vital Petroleum tanker onto the seaweed piles, a good hundred gallons of the stuff. The UNIT squaddies with back-pack flamethrowers set the weed alight and the whole lot went up like miniature suns.

'Jet fuel,' commented the doctor. 'Burns like merry hell.'

That it did. After fifteen minutes there were some ashy remnants on the sands.

'And now your work can begin, John,' said Beresford cheerily.

'What – oh, I get it. A cover story about what happened to the divers. Great. Literary licence required, I take it.' The Captain indicated the doctor with his eyes.

I later found out that "Titus Groan" is a respectable piece of literature. Oh well, books, covers, etcetera.

Everyone climbed back aboard their transport and we set off back to Hathern. The doctor took up his reading again until I disturbed him.

'What does the weed do to a victim? And why isn't it a threat whilst it's in the sea, you know, hitching a ride on schools of cod and so on.'

Rolling his eyes again, he marked his page.

'It utilises the intelligence and mobility of it's host. Except that it needs to have a host of at least fifty kilos to allow enough weed into it for controlling and parasitisation. Humans make great victims, thanks to having a brain and mobility. Fish are low on the list of good hosts. And before you ask, no it can't be cured or removed. It infests the body tissues of the host completely. Bloody awful stuff.'

The cover story was quite simple, which is a good way to keep your lies. There had indeed been a recent storm in the North Sea, and the two divers were declared as Missing Presumed Dead, with no bodies ever found. Hard on their families, I suppose, yet nothing like as horrid as the truth. The troops who burned objects on the shores south of Grimsby were merely dealing with barrels of toxic waste, presumably swept overboard from a vessel during the storm.

That was that. Captain Keane came back from whatever skullduggery he'd been practicing in Ulster, and didn't mention what it was, which meant Nick and I collected our kit smartish, the better to leave. He was wittering on about the weird staff at Proj Broom, then moved on to Sergeant Windsor, just as she arrived outside the open door, with some unflattering comments about her sexuality.

A quick knock later, and the Sergeant herself appeared, looking at Nick as if he were a sample on a slide. Silence prevailed for a second until I leapt in.

'Ah, Lieutenant Munroe! I think a quick final check of the perimeter fence is in order. Off you go now.'

He went at speed, the craven coward.

'I just came to say goodbye, sir, and thank you for not trying to change things or stamp your mark on the organisation.'

I made a face.

'The only reason I can be here is because I have an excellent NCO running the company whilst I'm gone. Only an idiot gets on the wrong side of their senior NCO's. Oh, and Lieutenant Munroe tends to let his gonads do the thinking for him. Hence his inaccurate comments.'

'Inaccurate, sir?' she said, nearly smiling.

I pointed at her hand.

'You don't wear any jewellery on duty, so you remove your wedding ring, which is indicated by the paler skin on your finger. Hence, "inaccurate".'

That impressed her and her eyes crinkled at the corners. For Sergeant Windsor, that was almost a belly-laugh.

'Well noticed, sir.'

'Big does not necessarily imply dim, Sergeant.'

She pursed her mouth in an amused way.

'Quite true, sir. Well, goodbye.'

Smart salutes all round, and she was long gone by the time Nick returned.

'That bloody woman! She scares me,' he commented while we walked to his Bentley.

'How was Corporal Jones?'

His good humour returned, briefly.

'Ah, splendid girl!' He made a rueful face. 'Also married. Hubby came home from leave unexpectedly. Exit Nick Munroe stage left. Well, at least I did learn one thing from Proj Broom.'

I waited whilst we drove out of Hathern Wood and back onto the motorway before weakening.

'Alright, you baffoon, what did you learn? Not to mess with married women?'

'No!' and he grinned evilly. 'How not to leave incriminating traces behind. Hubby still none the wiser.'

Like I said, thinks with his gonads.


	12. Chapter 12: The Third Estate

UNIT UK 12: The Third Estate 

The Doctor had a new assistant. Forgive me for going on about her, but she was easy on the eyes: slim, brunette and vivacious. Sarah Smith. There were various indelicate sweepstakes running at Aylesbury about her. Inevitably I had to meet her face-to-face for non-romantic reasons.

She had turned up in the wake of an investigation mounted by the Doctor into missing scientists, appearing with him in London during the Great Dinosaur Invasion. Quite what she and he made of that madhouse is anyone's guess, arriving literally in the middle of it. I still had problems believing it despite being there from the start.

'Hello? Anyone home?'

The Doctor's laboratory. I knew he was at home, since his big blue police box, code-name TARDIS, sat in a corner of the lab.

'Hello there!' came a cheery female voice from away in a corner. Miss Smith stood up and gave me a hearty hello. 'Who are you?'

'Lieutenant John Walmsley. And you are?'

The Doctor put in an appearance, emerging from his big, blue unearthly box of tricks.

'Oh, hello John. Have you met Sarah Jane?'

'Yes, Doctor, I have. I also need to get her details for the Index. Now, Miss Smith, you are – that is, what is your profession?'

Sarah looked at me with an utterly open countenance.

'Freelance journalist,' she proudly declared.

Pretty obviously my jaw descended as my eyebrows rose.

'A. Journalist. Freelance journalist.' I managed to burble, feeling as if someone had just thrown a bucket of cold water over me.

'Is there a problem?' asked the Doctor, running cables into his TARDIS from the power sockets along one of the walls. 'Anything in particular?'

For long seconds I stood, watching Sarah Jane Smith. She returned the favour, becoming uneasy.

'Doctor, do you know what happened to the last journalist who got in here!'

'My dear chap,' he replied, which is his way of implying you're an idiot. 'Sarah here cannot and will not make any embarassing revelations about you and your little tin soldiers.'

Miss Smith gave me a cheeky salute.

'Promise?' I asked them both. The Doctor nodded. Knowing him, he might well have hypnotised her not to blab. I didn't have much choice.

'Only gathering material,' explained Sarah, brightly. 'I know it'll have to be approved by the D-Notice committee and UNIT Geneva.'

'Does the Brig know about you?' I asked, another suspicion dawning.

'Really, Lieutenant Walmsley!' snapped the Doctor. 'Miss Smith is under my recognisance. That should be quite sufficient!'

'What _did_ happen to the last journalist to get in here?' asked Miss Smith, unable to let well alone.

I explained …

Having rotated back to Aylesbury after being over at Haylings House, I was shaving before dinner and luxuriating in the plentiful hot water. Haylings' hot water never gets more than tepid thanks to the Victorian plumbing system. Captain Beresford was OC whilst the Brig went to Geneva and Captain Received English was a stickler for officers looking neat and tidy.

Good job it was a safety not a cut-throat, because an ear-splitting howl began to shriek in the corridor outside my room, the alarm siren going for God knows what reason. I dropped the razor, wiped the foam off with a towel, dived for my cabinet and got the .45 in it's holster.

Once in the corridor outside, I witnessed Lieutenant Munroe go off down the stairs like a greyhound. I'd never seen him move so fast. The guard detail on duty were already pounding outside, sending gravel off the driveway everywhere.

I stepped into the Guard Room, where two nervous squaddies were watching the remote camera system, all in bright green thanks to night-vision infra red.

'What the bother?'

'Perimeter breach, sir. South fence, mid-way along. We spotted some berk climbing into the grounds.'

_Into?_

I nicked one of the duty Sterlings and went outside, just as a furious Captain Beresford came hurtling out of the building. Clearly he wasn't happy at having his evening meal interrupted. He was followed by at least a dozen other officers and men in varying states of dress.

'Lieutenant Walmsley!' he shouted as his eye fell upon me. 'What the bloody hell is going on!'

Good job I'd asked.

'Perimter breach, sir. The guard detail are off to check it out.'

'Then get some of these shirkers to help as well. And - why are you frothing at the mouth?'

Whoopsy-daisy. Shaving foam.

'You three!' I shouted, pointing at three slightly non-plussed squaddies floating around the Captain. 'Check the fence internally, clockwise from the gate. You three behind – check the fence externally, counter-clockwise.'

'Certainly, Lieutenant,' agreed Mike Yates, one of the rear three, smiling sardonically. 'Come on, let's do as the officer says.'

Another whoops.

'Rest of you, come with me.'

We double-timed across the lawns, and witnessed Sergeant Horrigan driving out through the gates with Nick Munroe hanging onto the Browning HMG on the pintle, looking for intruders to shoot. Personally I just hoped Nick would be careful; he's a bit too fond of letting fly with a great swathe of bullets.

The intruder lay spread-eagled on the lawn, under the guns and watchful eyes of the guard detail, who were pointing their SLR's with perceptible dislike. A camera was being emptied of film by Corporal Higgins.

'I said -' began the man.

'Shut your effing bunghole!' shouted Private Ely with cheery contempt. That figured. Ely had an uncanny sense of direction and could have caught this character blindfolded in fog.

'Sir. Got this bugger on the ground, going to start frisking him.'

'Very good. Carry on.' And something went crunch under my foot.

'My glasses!' moaned the man on the ground, despairingly.

'Worry about yourself, mate, not your glasses,' warned Corporal Higgins, getting the man's wallet and riffling it's contents before passing the film reel to me.

This didn't seem right. Why would anyone want to break into Aylesbury? And how did this article get inside the perimeter fence?

'I'm a journalist!' gasped the intruder.

'Shut it!' snapped Ely, turning to look at Higgins, who had a torch and was checking the wallet.

'Bloody hell! True enough, sir, here's his NUJ card. NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS.'

Captain Beresford caught up with us, so I gestured for Ely to lift the prisoner off the ground.

NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS. The name sounded familiar. Left-wing bolshy stuff, I seemed to remember. Oh dear, oh dear, hopefully Captain Beresford wouldn't know –

'You!' barked the Captain, recognising the prisoner instantly. Mister Investigative Journo assumed an air of injured innocence, whilst Captain Beresford went purple with rage. These two seemed to have a shared history, and not a happy one.

'Shall I escort the prisoner indoors, sir?' I asked.

'Eh? "execute" him?'

'No, sir, _escort_ him.' Lord above,a revealing slip or what!

The guard detail frog-marched the prisoner back to the Guard Room, while the Captain and I looked around.

Bap-bap-bap, went the flat, percussive sound of a fifty-calibre Browning, nearby.

'That's Munroe, isn't it? He'd better not have shot another damn journalist. That's all I bloody need.' He sent off the other soldiers with him to find the landrover and see who had been shot.

I continued to look around. There were no cuts in the fence, nor any ladders nearby. Beresford stopped me and pointed overhead.

'The Late Ladder.'

A rope, knotted at regular intervals, hung from the branch of an elm tree on the road side of the fence. It finished six feet above the ground and enabled a person to swing over the strip of raked sand and pressure sensors inside the fence. A piece of engine block had been tied to the end of the rope.

I'd overheard one or two of the squaddies referring to the Late Ladder without knowing what it was.

'The other ranks use it to get back inside after being AWOL or back too late. The idea is to shin down it, then toss it back up onto the branch.'

That explained the engine block, giving the rope enough mass to be thrown. The squaddies wouldn't be happy at losing their private way back into barracks; no wonder our prisoner got treated roughly.

'I'll get it cut down tomorrow, sir,' I replied with enthusiasm. 'I take it you know that journalist?'

'Do I!' bristled Beresford, with less intensity than before. 'Muck-raking Commie rogue – bah! Yes I do, from my Intelligence Corps days. He loves to criticise the Army. Never mind the opposition or the Provos or the Russians, no, oh no, just us.'

He simmered into an angry silence.

We met the returning landrover at the gate, with a grinning escort of soldiers walking alongside, Tom Horrigan driving and trying very hard not to laugh, and a very chastened Nick sitting in the passenger seat.

'The body's in the back, sir,' explained one of the soldiers. Both Beresford and I exchanged looks of alarm and peered in the back of the landrover.

'Don't. Just don't,' grated Nick through gritted teeth when I tapped on his window, a big smile on my face. Captain Beresford said nothing, but his grim expression had lightened.

NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS had been transferred to a makeshift cell, a hastily emptied broom cupboard. We discussed what to do with him in the Guard Room.

'Sergeant Horrigan spotted a pile of cigarette butts in the grass by the roadside, sir,' explained Nick. 'A couple were still warm. Signs a car was parked there.'

'He didn't walk all the way out here. That must have been his driver.'

'Panicked and ran when the sirens went,' I suggested. Captain Beresford shook his head.

'No. No, the way it works, the driver will assume his passenger has been captured, then head for the nearest phone box and ring – oh, probably the New Statesman. They in turn will wake up a few lawyers, who will ring the MoD, who will eventually admit Aylesbury belongs to UNIT. I think Darling Duncan will be here with us for a few hours at least.'

The big question then became what did we do with him? The next-biggest question was why he wanted to break into Aylesbury. Swafham Prior, with all it's relics, would be a better target.

'You can't do this to me!' he shouted angrily through the keyhole of the broom cupboard, provoking sniggers from the two men guarding him. 'I'm a journalist! I've got rights!' to more sniggering. 'And you can't lock me up in a cupboard!' with an air of injured dignity.

'A nine mill to the back of the head, then bury the remains under a rosebush?' suggested Nick.

'_Thank_ you! Lieutenant Munroe. I have calmed down, as you may have noticed.'

'We could strip search him, burn his clothes, issue a set of fatigues, see what's on his film,' I suggested.

'Take him into the gym and shout at him?'

'John – sort out the film. Corporal Higgins, we're going to take the prisoner to the gym. And get a spare set of fatigues ready.'

By the time I returned from the darkroom with a single developed photograph, a cluster of officers and men were busy going through the motions with our prisoner. He sat on a bench in the middle of the gym, looking dwarfish in a set of fatigues far too large for him, squinting short-sightedly at his captors thanks to my careless big feet.

'What did he photograph?' asked Captain Beresford, eager to learn.

I showed him. A single, not very well-framed or focussed shot of Aylesbury from a vantage point about thirty feet above ground level: the Late Ladder viewpoint.

'A better writer than photographer, eh?' commented Yates.

'The public has a right to know,' said NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS. Still sullenly defiant.

'The public have _no_ right to know, not until the UN decides. That's the United Nations who decide: not you, not me, not the Army, not the British Government or the Civil Service. The United Nations. Until then you and your stories are going to get sat upon.' Captain Beresford at his most correct. I was glad he'd calmed down, the sight of him going crimson with anger was hugely unusual and rather unsettling.

Nick asked what most of us wondered.

'The public have a right to know just what, exactly?'

NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS squinted up at the lieutenant.

'About the monsters you've created! The fake monsters and the fake dinoasaurs and fake terrorists and fake attacks that allow you to declare States of Emergency at the drop of a hat. You behave as if you ruled the country, with your "OSAEPPA" paperwork and planning. Anytime the government runs into trouble you declare an emergency and put up a smoke-screen and keep it up – keep it up – until things – until - ' He began strongly and with vehemence, but tailed off when he saw the incomprehension, incredulity and malicious amusement on the various faces around him. Nick and Yates openly laughed at him.

'What an utter twod!' declared Yates, plainly amused at the prisoner's getting things completely wrong.

'Textbook definition of arse-over-tit logic,' sniggered Nick.

'Those damn dinosaurs again,' I muttered.

Captain Beresford stared at NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS with an expression of bewildered astonishment.

'You think that we create crises to – to – to divert attention from _government problems_!' and his mouth flapped a few times like a stranded fish.

Our stalwart prisoner might very well have steeled his conscience and will to resist if we had beaten him bloody, or set dogs on him, or put a bucket over his head and pounded it with a hammer, but being ridiculed by people who were genuinely scornful took the wind out of his sails.

'Look, Mister NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS,' I intervened. 'There are no monsters here. If the Captain so permits - ' quick glance at Beresford, who looked quizzical but interested ' – I can escort you around the premises, show you anywhere you want to go, prove that you've been sent on a fool's errand.'

He agreed, and said afterwards that he didn't dare refuse a suggestion from someone so angry they were frothing at the mouth.

It took an hour, with CSM Benton and Captain Yates in attendance, to show our prisoner around Aylesbury. By the time we finished he seemed shrunken within himself, rendered unsure and uncertain. It had been a slight gamble, I judged, worth taking.

Our little tour party ended up in Captain Beresford's office, where a re-heated dinner sat on the desk.

'Satisfied?'

NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS looked defiant again.

'Well, there's nothing here, that's certain. Our information was wrong about the location.'

Hmm. Perhaps I'd underestimated our prisoner's determination to find fault with UNIT.

CSM Benton, demonstrating sound common-sense, put in a suggestion.

'Sir – we can't detain him indefinitely. He's not convinced that we aren't hiding something. Why not take him to Swafham?'

Initially Captain Beresford dismissed the idea, reacting with horror. After a moment's contemplation, he got a nasty amused look on his face, which I mirrored.

Oh yes. Oh yes indeed. Show NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS the truth, about the very real monsters that UNIT had faced. See what he made of conspiracy theories after that. UNIT helping the government by manufacturing crises indeed! No, it went the other way round, actually.

Before he left I apologised for stepping on his glasses, and gave him an indent to sign for a replacement pair.

'I shouldn't have let Tariq talk me into it,' he sighed. 'I'm not a damn cub reporter any more. Nor do I have a head for heights.'

The upshot of NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS visit to Swafham Prior was – nothing. Which was good. He didn't print anything about UNIT, and in fact avoided any mention of us ever after. I suppose physical proof of what we did is persuasive.

That was the story I retailed to the Doctor and Sarah.

'Yesss, well, he refrains from comment until the Zircon satellite affair,' commented the Doctor, rubbing his cheek with one finger.

"Zircons"? They weren't in the UNIT Bestiary. Another lot of evil alien invaders, no doubt.

'And the Brig found it highly embarassing when he got back from Geneva, having to make an explanation,' I finished.

'I should think so too!' said Sarah, with vim, her feeling for a fellow-journalist coming out. 'Arresting a member of the press and tormenting him like that!'

I looked at her curiously.

'No, I don't mean that. I refer to him having to explain to the RSPCA as to why an officer on his strength had wilfully used a heavy machine gun to kill a badger!'


End file.
